US media rocked by layoffs amid economic gloom

NEW YORK

From CNN to the Washington Post, US media are facing tough times, as a series of outlets have announced layoffs this winter amid fears of an economic downturn.

Vox Media, owner of the Vox and The Verge websites as well as the landmark New York Magazine and its online platforms, announced on Janusry 20 it was letting go 7 percent of its staff. The news follows layoffs at CNN, NBC, MSNBC, Buzzfeed and other outlets.

In a memo to staff Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff announced “the difficult decision to eliminate roughly 7 percent of our staff roles across departments due to the challenging economic environment impacting our business and industry”.

While the media layoffs were not as dramatic as those rocking tech giants such as Microsoft and Google, which announced Friday it was cutting 12,000 more jobs, they were a consequence of falling advertising revenue amid a gloomy economic climate, said Chris Roush, Dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

“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 said. The union comprises journalists from NBC and MSNBC.

A similar announcement is dreaded at the Washington Post, where CEO Fred Ryan warned last month that “a number of positions” will be cut in the following weeks.

The Washington Post Magazine, the paper’s Sunday supplement which won two Pulitzer prizes, was shut down in December.”

In recent months, CNN has laid off an estimated several hundred workers out of a total of some 4,000 people, according to US media. CNN would not confirm those figures.

“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 said.