L.A. Times to Cut 13% of Newsroom Jobs, Union ‘Outraged’ Over Layoffs
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The Los Angeles Times, facing declining ad revenue and readership, is eliminating 74 editorial jobs, representing about 13% of the total newsroom staff. Staffers at the paper learned of the cut in a memo sent Wednesday from executive editor Kevin Merida, wrote wrote that the decision was “made more urgent by the economic climate and the unique challenges of our industry, the L.A. Times reported. The L.A. Times Guild, an affiliate of Media Guild of the West, issued a statement that it was “outraged” by the job cuts and that it was “blindsided by this news.” “We are outraged by management’s announcement this morning that it plans to lay off 57 Guild members across several departments, amounting to roughly 15% of our entire newsroom membership, including several Guild leaders,” Reed Johnson, LAT Guild Unit council chair, said in a statement. “This list of targeted layoffs is not final. Under our contract, management is required to bargain with the Guild over proposed layoffs. Management also so far has failed to offer buyouts to staff as is required by our contract.”