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The Los Angeles Times announced Tuesday that billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong will lay off 115 employees in an effort to stem losses that have ballooned to $30 million to $40 million a year.
The layoff figures include both union and non-union management positions. Times reporter and Media Guild West chairman Matt Pearce said 94 union workers were being made redundant at X, which was “devastating” but not expected a week ago. He said the number was lower than the number he had.
According to the union’s contract, the layoffs were expected to affect employees with the least seniority. The union rejected management’s offer to buy out the company in exchange for giving up seniority.
Some staff members started saying Post to X They are had been let go.They included Kimbriel KellyDC Bureau Chief, and Nick Baumanthe acting Washington, D.C., bureau chief who was to lead the paper’s coverage of the 2024 presidential election.
Jeff Berkovich The paper’s business editor, and Lindsey Blakelythe business deputy editor also said in X that they had been fired, as well as several other business staff.
In an interview with the LA Times, Soon-Shiong acknowledged the layoffs were “painful for everyone” but said they were necessary to build a sustainable business. He also said recent years had been “turbulent” but rejected the idea that the paper was currently in turmoil.
“We’re not in a state of chaos,” he said. “We have a real plan.”
The mass layoffs come just two weeks after the paper’s editor-in-chief, Kevin Merida, announced he would step down after just two and a half years on the job. After Merida’s departure, four editors took charge of the newsroom. Two of them subsequently left the newspaper company.
The layoffs represent about 20% of the newsroom’s staff and come after the newspaper cut 74 newsroom staff several months ago.
The announcement also came on the same day that The Last Repair Shop, a short documentary about Los Angeles Unified School District employees who repair musical instruments, was nominated for the first-ever Academy Award, according to The Times.
The LA Times Guild went on a one-day walkout Friday to protest planned layoffs.
This process will unfold over the next 30 days.
A group of 10 MPs wrote to Mr Soon-Shiong and the union on Monday, expressing hope that “significant” cuts can be avoided.
In response, Soon-Shiong urged lawmakers to support legislation that would help address the paper’s financial challenges.
“We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars (close to $1 billion) into the LA Times over the past five years, and we are committed to continuing that investment as we work to put the paper on a path to sustainability.” We are working on it,” said Soon-Shiong. he wrote.
Soon-Shiong bought the paper for $500 million in 2018 and worked to revitalize it by adding 150 editorial staff. By the middle of last year, the paper had grown its digital subscriber base to more than 550,000 people, double what it had in 2020, but it is still short of that goal.
Like other outlets covering Hollywood, the publication lost revenue in the wake of last year’s Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
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