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The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to close to a quarter of the people working in its newsroom. The Media Guild of the West, which represents the Times' unionized journalists, says that the cuts included reporters, editors and columnists. A union statement also said that the layoffs fell disproportionately on Black, Latino and Asian employees. The layoffs follow the resignation of executive editor Kevin Merida and other senior newsroom managers. LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong said the paper has been losing $30 million to $40 million a year and need to make more progress toward increasing revenue and readership. “Slashing a quarter of the newsroom is devastating by any measure — to our members and their families, to our morale, to the quality of our journalism, to the bond with our audience, and to the communities that depend on our work,” the Guild said.
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TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which accounts for approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff. According to a TIME spokesperson, the cuts hit departments including editorial, technology, sales and the company’s studios division. At TIME for Kids, the platform’s publication for school-age children, a majority of the staff was let go. “We have worked to manage expenses in other areas of our business aggressively to minimize the impact of this decision on our employees,” TIME chief executive Jessica Sibley wrote in a memo to staffers that was obtained by CNN. Sibley called the job cuts part of “a series of decisions to structure our company for long-term sustainability and growth.”
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The Baltimore Banner, the nonprofit platform that faces off against the Baltimore Sun says that it added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following the sale of the paper to Sinclair Broadcast Group chairman David D. Smith by Alden Global Capital, according to NiemanLab. Banner editor in chief Kimi Yoshino also says that traffic to the Banner website has doubled since the sale and donations are up. The Banner now claims 89,000 paid subscribers, versus 70,000 seven months ago. Banner founder Stewart Bainum made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Sun in 2022.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
