And that recession never came, but it led to a media recession, where so many dollars went away that suddenly, you had layoffs all over. And the advertising industry for that collapsed as their fears of recession overwhelmed people who'd put money into advertisements. And then there's this promise of podcasts - right? - this - not only for those of us in audio here at NPR but at other places like the Post, like the LA Times. People can get what they want elsewhere or get good enough elsewhere. The transformation really undermined legacy media, particularly print publishers like magazines and newspapers. And at the same moment, what they really needed to be doing was figuring out how to establish a bond with their audiences to be paying subscribers. We were talking about Pitchfork.įOLKENFLIK: Well, I think there's a confluence of factors here, right? I think that, for a great deal of time, owners sort of were on this quest to extract as much money as possible. KELLY: Well, and people may remember just last week we were here talking about Sports Illustrated. I also got to say, though, we at NPR went through a 10% cut last year.įOLKENFLIK: We saw Vox Media go through - others as well. And it tells you that simply having passels of money doesn't mean that that's financially viable for the organizations themselves even if one can take issue with the way in which these cuts were handled. In its case, in Washington, that's Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Like the LA Times, it is owned by a civic-minded billionaire. The Washington Post just laid off 10% of its ownership. But we've seen this story to some way before. KELLY: Contrast this to what is happening more broadly in the industry, David.įOLKENFLIK: Well, this is particularly brutal for a newspaper this size, you know, the newsroom - the largest west of the Hudson or Potomac rivers. Another reporter said she had just spent the night in a lighthouse in Oregon on assignment and has no story to file. But the human toll of all these journalists who clearly loved this institution - you know, talking about having stayed up all night last night in dread of this, finishing investigative projects. And you see - you're going to see this, you know, take real effect in its pages and what it offers online. So that's about a third of its entire newsroom in well under a year. And that will represent about 22, 23% layoff happening in a single day.įOLKENFLIK: You know, and this comes on the wake of just - what? - seven, eight months ago, the LA Times laying off 13% of its force. The LA Times has confirmed - and its employees are letting us know online - that it has laid off about 115 journalists in its newsroom of what had been about 500. And, David, talk first about what is happening in Los Angeles.ĭAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Well, it's really rather extraordinary. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik is with me now. Time magazine and National Geographic also let people go, and journalists at magazine publisher Conde Nast staged a one-day strike. The Los Angeles Times laid off nearly a quarter of its newsroom. Today we got more tangible evidence of the tough times afflicting the news business.
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