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Gatehouse Media has kicked off the up to $300 million in “synergies” it expects to reap from its merger with Gannett by letting go of more than two dozen newsroom staffers, according to a report from Associated Press. Papers hit by the layoffs include the Providence Journal and the Oklahoman, the report says. GateHouse borrowed $1.8 billion from private equity firm Apollo at a high-interest rate to close the Gannett deal, and it also expects the dividend it pays shareholders to rise, so it is looking to cut costs. Michael Reed, the CEO of Gatehouse owner New Media Investment Group, said that the savings would mostly come from consolidating such functions as finance, sales, digital services and tech, but did not mention editorial staffers.
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Overall salaries for magazine editors are holding steady, but the gender gap in the field still stubbornly persists, according to Folio’s annual salary survey, which was released Aug. 27. The study found that female editors-in-chief received an average base salary of $82,500 annually, while their male counterparts were paid an average of $100,000. At the associate editor level, the disparity is even more pronounced, with women being paid about 76 percent as much ($54,000 per year) as men ($70,500). Another gap exists between print and digital publishing, with editors-in-chief at print-only publications receiving an average annual base salary of $80,000, while those at publications that operate across both print and digital platforms averaged $92,000 and those at digital-only publications averaged $120,000. Folio based its results on a survey of 255 editors (half EICs, half associate and managing editors) from across the U.S. in May.
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The paywall that came down at The Atlantic 10 years ago appears to be going back up. Atlantic president Bob Cohn told the Wall Street Journal that the publication will launch a metered paywall in January. Readers will be able to access 10 articles per month for free, after which they will need to pay for access. “We’re looking around and seeing peers who we respect getting people to pay for their digital content,” Cohn said. Laurene Powell Jobs, who acquired a majority stake in the publication in 2017, postponed the previously announced paywall, focusing on beefing up the headcount and content before asking readers to pay up. While The Atlantic website currently offers a digital subscription at $29.50 per year, the final price, once the paywall has been erected, is yet to be determined.
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
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