The Los Angeles Times laid off 115 employees this Tuesday. Staff at the most important newspaper in the American West received an email from human resources this morning informing them that they were part of a cut that affected just over 20% of the workforce. In a report, the newspaper assured that the measure is a response to the financial difficulties of the organization, predicting that 2024 will be “another year of heavy losses”. The layoffs came four days after the paper's first strike by journalists in its history.
“Management has informed me that 94 members of our union were laid off today, a quarter of our organization,” Matt Pearce, president of the LA Guild, the newspaper's union, announced this morning. The group was founded in 2018 after the newspaper was taken over by doctor Patrick Soon-Shiong, a pioneer in the field of pancreas transplantation who is worth around $5.5 billion. The 1881-born tycoon's rise to media fame was not the financial balm many believed. Since then, the LA Times has suffered annual losses of between $30 million and $40 million.
“Today’s decision is painful for everyone, but we must act urgently and take steps to build a sustainable and successful newspaper for the next generation,” Soon-Shiong said.
The union criticized the owner's decision. “Cutting a quarter of our newsroom is devastating by any measure,” he said. The group recalls that last summer the media laid off another 74 employees, representing a loss of 37% of the workforce in less than a year. And he accuses that the reduction particularly affected younger employees and employees of black and Latin American descent. “The company could have avoided this by offering voluntary departures, but that was not the route chosen,” the statement continued.
The crisis, the union continued, was caused by the leadership, which instilled in the institution a “mediocre” strategy and the absence of a general editor (Kevin Mérida resigned earlier this year after two and a half years in office). ). and the disorientation.
Among the hundred journalists and writers the LA Times is losing today is Washington bureau chief Kimbriell Kelly. Kelly is the second woman to hold this important position and the first Black person to lead the office's political information. The newspaper boasted about the arrival on its pages of the journalist who won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for a story about abuses by FBI agents. Previously in the LA Times, Kelly edited coverage of George Tyndall, a gynecologist at the University of Southern California who raped hundreds of women over 25 years. The series won the Los Angeles newspaper's first Pulitzer Prize in 17 years.
The paper also got rid of Jean Guerrero, the only Latina columnist it had in its opinion section. “It's a black day,” the journalist, who also wrote a book about Stephen Miller, Trump's radical immigration adviser, wrote in which the newspaper has tried to conquer in recent years with the introduction of products such as 404, a digital section, and De Los for Latinos. This initiative was weakened after several layoffs.
Joaquín Castro, the Latino congressman from Texas, has highlighted the loss of plurality in the newsroom. “In recent years, the LA Times has made significant efforts to make the newsroom more diverse. Today they have laid off more than 100 people, many of them people of color. “They were people who were dedicated to serving their communities, which is a tremendous loss to the industry,” the Democratic lawmaker wrote on social media.
The crisis currently facing the largest-circulation newspaper in Los Angeles highlights the turbulent days the press is going through. The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, has laid off 240 journalists in 2023. Last week, Sports Illustrated, the most influential sports magazine with a 70-year history, announced the layoffs of 82 employees. Your future is in danger. A few days earlier, the departure of writers from the influential music magazine Pitchfork, a brand acquired by GQ magazine during a period of editorial downsizing, was announced.