Qz (Quartz)
U.S. center-left
Background
Quartz launched in September 2012 under Atlantic Media as a mobile-first business news outlet aimed at a global professional audience, staffed by veterans from Bloomberg, The Economist, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. It grew to roughly 250 employees and $35 million in annual revenue by the mid-2010s. In 2018, Japanese media company Uzabase acquired Quartz for $86 million, but sold it back to its own staff in November 2020 following pandemic-related losses. In April 2022, private equity-backed G/O Media purchased Quartz for less than $10 million. Under G/O Media, the outlet drew criticism for publishing AI-generated articles attributed to a 'Quartz Intelligence Newsroom,' with quality-control failures leading to errors and misinformation. In April 2025, G/O Media sold Quartz to Redbrick, a Canadian software firm, which promptly laid off 10 of the 12 remaining newsroom employees. Quartz co-founder Zach Seward publicly called it a 'zombie brand.' Before its editorial collapse, media bias trackers rated it center to center-left, with a strong fact-check record and consistent skepticism toward conservative economic and environmental policies.
Sources
- G/O Media sells Quartz to Canadian software company — Axios
- Quartz (publication) — Wikipedia
- "Quartz is now a zombie brand" — Nieman Journalism Lab
- Redbrick Acquires Quartz from G/O Media — Business Wire
- Quartz Fires All Writers After Move to AI Slop — Futurism
- Quartz — Bias and Credibility — Media Bias/Fact Check
- Quartz Media Bias — AllSides
Profile compiled 2026-07-16; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.