Paste cut its film and TV teams on Monday in an restructuring that will see the site publishing only music coverage, TheWrap has learned.
The news company’s President and Editor-in-Chief Josh Jackson confirmed the news in a statement to TheWrap, explaining that Paste’s TV and movies coverage will live on via Paste Media sister site The A.V. Club, which it acquired in 2024.
“We’ll still have TV and movies coverage on Paste, it will just be led by our TV and movies teams at The A.V. Club. But the heart of Paste has always been music, and we want to be the premiere music site on the internet,” Jackson said. “We believe our music coverage has never been better than under Matt Mitchell’s leadership, and that’s where the Paste team’s focus will be moving forward.”
Employees laid off in the site’s shake-up Monday included movies editor Jim Vorel and associate movies editor Jesse Hassenger, as well as TV and books editor Lacy Baugher Milas, who first shared the news on X.
“Today, @PasteMagazine shuttered all its non-music verticals, a choice I am both professionally and personally heartbroken about,” Milas wrote in a tweet re-shared by Hassenger.
Today, @PasteMagazine shuttered all its non-music verticals, a choice I am both professionally and personally heartbroken about. Sadly,I am once again looking for a place that wants to let me write about Books and TV on the regular, so hit me up if that’s you or anyone you know.
— Lacy Baugher Milas (@LacyMB) November 17, 2025
Many Paste contributors also lamented the news on social media.
“I wrote so many things there that I still love to death and it’s awful to see things end this way,” Kathryn Porter, a former intern-turned-contributor to the site, said.
“One of the first outlets that shepherded me when starting to freelance in 2022,” Rendy Jones said. “Such an incredible team of writers and editors. Hire Lacy. Hire everyone affected.”
Founded in 1998 and led by Jackson since 2002, the Atlanta-based entertainment news site and former glossy magazine has garnered a dedicated readership for its incisive writing on music, movies, TV, games, books, comics and more. It has seen a number of iterations over the years, including cutting its print edition in 2010, a move that laid off nearly all of its full-time staff.
Paste Media, meanwhile, has seen a number of acquisitions of other news sites in recent years. In addition to The A.V. Club in March 2024, the company relaunched Splinter News that same month and in November 2023 acquired Jezebel from G/O Media in an all-cash deal.
In July of this year, Paste spun off its gaming coverage into Endless Mode, a new site dedicated exclusively to gaming and anime coverage. Garrett Martin, the longtime editor of Paste’s gaming section, said at the time that launching the site was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.”
