He blamed issues at The North Star on over-ambition, but seven former employees of the site King launched with great fanfare painted a darker picture. When Shaun King and progressive journalist Benjamin Dixon launched an ambitious multimedia reboot of Frederick Douglass’ abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, last February, it was celebrated across social media by prominent voices including Susan Sarandon, Michael Eric Dyson and Megan Mullally. A month later, the company boasted on Twitter that it already had “multiple angel investors” and more than 30,000 subscribers contributing $5 per month for students and $10 a month and up for the...