Media Maneuvers

Condé Nast, facing losses that the New York Times says amounted to $120 million last year, is preparing to put three of its titles—Brides, W and Golf Digest—up for sale. Condé Nast CEO Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr. is scheduled to discuss the company’s plans with senior staff members on Aug. 8. After shutting down Details as well as the print editions of both Self and Teen Vogue, with a resultant loss of 80 employees, the publisher is now considering an additional series of cost-cutting moves to stem the flow of red ink. According to the Times, it is planning to lease six of the 23 floors that it occupies at 1 World Trade Center, where it has been headquartered since 2015. In addition, the company has already combined the research and photo departments of several of its magazines. While such titles as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Vogue are said to be safe, rumors have circulated about the departure of Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. The company says those rumors are false.

National Geographic Partners is eliminating the positions of Rachel Webber, executive vice president of digital; Rosa Zeegers, executive vice president of consumer products and experiences; and Laura Nichols, executive vice president and chief communications officer. Webber will be remaining with NGP as a strategic partner, while Zeeger and Nichols will be leaving the organization. National Geographic Partners is the division created through a strategic partnership between the National Geographic Society and 21^thCentury Fox Television. NGP’s global communications team will now become part of a marketing, communications, research, data and insights team to be led by Jill Cress, while the digital unit will be subsumed by NG Media, which will be responsible for both print and digital platforms. NG Media will be co-led by current National Geographic magazine editor-in-chief Susan Goldberg and general manager of digital David Miller.

Newsroom employment dropped 23 percent from 2008 to 2017, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics survey data. In 2008, according to the survey results, there were about 114,000 newsroom employees – reporters, editors, photographers and videographers – across newspaper, radio, broadcast television, cable and “other information services” in the U.S. By 2017, that number was about 88,000. Most of that decline, the survey concluded, is due to job losses at newspapers, which lost 32,000 newsroom workers during that time period. The number of digital-native newsroom employees, on the other hand, increased by 79 percent, from about 7,400 workers in 2008 to about 13,000 in 2017—not nearly enough to make up for the losses at newspapers. The drop in newspaper newsroom employment also means that industry now accounts for a smaller portion of overall newsroom workers. In 2008, about six in ten (62 percent) of all newsroom employees worked at newspapers. By 2017, they made up only 45 percent.