Amid financial turmoil, the Los Angeles Times laid off roughly 115 journalists in a single Zoom call. With the layoffs, the newspaper slashed 20% of its newsroom personnel. Its billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, stated that the layoffs were necessary to ensure the newspaper’s long-term viability and refused to admit that the company was in any form of trouble. The layoffs, published by the newspaper on Tuesday (Jan 23), impacted both union and non-union personnel. Matt Pearce, President of the Media Guild of the West, who represents the Times’ unionized writers, wrote on X that 94 union members were contacted about being let off on Wednesday (Jan 24), which is one-quarter of the union members but incredibly few of them had originally anticipated.
We believe our decision to go on strike saved scores of newsroom jobs today,” the Los Angeles Times Guild stated
“We believe our decision to go on strike saved scores of newsroom jobs today,” the Los Angeles Times Guild stated in a statement on Wednesday, citing an email from the media company’s COO and president. Some employees who were laid off took to X to express their news. The chief and deputy chief of the paper’s D.C. bureau, Kimbriell Kelly and Nick Baumann, as well as Jeff Bercovici and Lindsay Blakely, the editor and deputy editor of the business section, among others, posted about the layoffs.
In an interview which was published in his paper, Soon-Shiong said that the layoffs were “painful for all,” but added that they were part of a “real plan” of making the paper viable. He added that the newspaper had faced “tumultuous” years, but rejected the fact that the company was in chaos. “We are not in turmoil,” Soon-Shiong said. The layoffs happened just two weeks after the newspaper’s executive editor Kevin Merida resigned after working for two and a half years. The newspaper had previously laid off 74 newsroom employees a few months prior. The additional layoffs occurred at a time when the newspaper received its first Oscar nomination for the documentary short film ‘The Last Repair Shop’.