US media sees huge job cuts amid financial gloom
By Agence France-Presse: From CNN to the Washington Post, US media are going through robust instances, as a sequence of retailers have introduced layoffs this winter amid fears of an financial downturn.
Vox Media, proprietor of the Vox and The Verge web sites in addition to the landmark New York Magazine and its on-line platforms, introduced Friday it was letting go seven % of its employees.
The information follows layoffs at CNN, NBC, MSNBC, Buzzfeed and different retailers.
In a memo to employees on Friday, Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff introduced “the difficult decision to eliminate roughly seven percent of our staff roles across departments due to the challenging economic environment impacting our business and industry.”
The memo, which was confirmed to AFP by Vox Media, stated the affected staff have been going to be notified of being let go throughout the subsequent quarter-hour. That would imply some 130 out of the group’s 1,900 employees.
Meghan McCarron, an award-winning journalist who spent greater than 9 years at Eater, a meals web site owned by Vox Media, tweeted on Friday that she was amongst these laid off – whereas 37 weeks pregnant.
“My partner and I are so excited to become parents,” McCarron posted. “I can’t really process the amount of uncertainty we’re now facing,” she added.
A Vox spokesperson advised AFP they may not touch upon particular circumstances, however that staff have been supplied “competitive severance packages,” together with additional severance pay for these with “a near-term upcoming parental leave planned.”
Journalists who have been laid off from different organizations in latest weeks have additionally taken to Twitter to specific anger, dismay, or gratitude to their colleagues, whereas starting to search for a brand new job.
“I’ll be figuring out my next move. I’m a data reporter but I also write and produce,” tweeted Emily Siegel, who was let go after 5 years as an investigative reporter at NBC. “I’d love to keep doing this work. My (direct messages) are open.”
‘Under stress for a very long time’
While the media layoffs weren’t as dramatic as these rocking tech giants reminiscent of Microsoft and Google, which introduced Friday it was chopping 12,000 extra jobs, they have been a consequence of falling promoting income amid a depressing financial local weather, stated Chris Roush, dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.
“For a lot of them, they grew and expanded on the expectation that they were going to be able to grow their audience, or either readers or viewers to a certain level,” Roush advised AFP.”And that just hasn’t happened and is unlikely to happen given what’s happening in the economy.”
Newsroom employment has seen a gentle decline within the United States, falling from 114,000 to 85,000 journalists between 2008 and 2020, in line with a 2021 research by the Pew Research Center, with native media hit particularly onerous.
“Journalism has been under pressure for a long time, and a number of companies seem to think this is an opportune time to reduce their labor costs – hurting both journalists and journalism,” the Writers Guild of America, East stated in an announcement to AFP.
The union contains journalists from NBC and MSNBC. The two retailers, which declined an AFP request for remark, bid farewell to some 75 staff, in line with US media.
The same announcement is dreaded on the Washington Post, the place CEO Fred Ryan warned final month that “a number of positions” might be reduce within the following weeks, including that the layoffs would have an effect on “a single digit percentage of our employee base” of some 2,500 individuals. Hires for different positions can proceed, the paper stated.
The Washington Post Magazine, the paper’s Sunday complement which gained two Pulitzer prizes, was shut down in December as a part of what government editor Sally Buzbee described in a memo because the paper’s “global and digital transformation.”
And Vice Media CEO Nancy Dubuc introduced to her employees on Friday that the corporate is up on the market.
‘Steep, secular decline’
In latest months, CNN has laid off an estimated a number of hundred staff out of a complete of some 4,000 individuals, in line with US media. CNN wouldn’t affirm these figures to AFP.
The cuts befell as the corporate underwent a restructuring following a merger between Warner Media, which incorporates CNN and HBO Max, and Discovery. The merger resulted within the creation of Warner Bros. Discovery mega conglomerate.
Following the merger, CNN’s new guardian firm abruptly pulled the plug on the community’s $100 million streaming service CNN+.
Naveen Sarma, a senior media analyst with S&P Global Rating, famous a “steep, secular decline” of conventional broadcast and cable tv within the United States, resulting in a dramatic drop in subscriptions to paid TV.
“That’s a constant ongoing struggle for all these companies to come in,” stated Sarma.
Roush of Quinnipiac University says the modifications have been particularly painful for smaller media.
“CNN, Washington Post, those are not going away, but a smaller company, they have bigger issues, because they’re just smaller and not as well established as a media brand,” he stated.
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Published On:
Jan 22, 2023
