The Los Angeles Times, the major American daily on the West Coast created 142 years ago, will lay off more than a fifth of its editorial staff, or at least 115 people, the newspaper, in great financial difficulty, announced on Tuesday.
The title’s management had already announced Thursday that it was “planning layoffs” to reduce its operating budget, a new example of the deep crisis hitting the press.
Some 90% of the newspaper’s unionized employees then stopped working in protest on Friday, calling on management to “sit down at the negotiating table” and “develop a buyout plan” with them.
“Today’s decision is painful for everyone, but it is imperative that we act quickly and take steps to build a viable and thriving newspaper for future generations,” the title’s billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-, said on Tuesday. Shiong, according to the LA Times.
The newspaper would have lost between 30 and 40 million dollars last year.
The executive criticized Friday’s walkout, saying he was disappointed that the editorial union had not worked with officials to find ways to save jobs.
For their part, journalists denounced a wave of express dismissals: “The LA Times fired us during a videoconference (…) without giving us the opportunity to ask questions,” assured journalist Jared Servantez on X (formerly Twitter).
This new departure plan comes after the daily had already cut 70 positions last June.
Like many traditional press titles, the LA Times has struggled to adapt to the upheavals brought about by the advent of the Internet. The newspaper must face the decline in its advertising revenues and the erosion of its number of subscribers.
On the east coast, 400 journalists and unionized employees of the American group Condé Nast, which brings together titles like Vanity Fair, Vogue and GQ, also stopped work on Tuesday to protest against the conditions of a plan to lay off 5% of employees. workforce, or around 300 people.
Print media is in trouble in the United States and its extinction is accelerating, according to the latest annual report from the Northwestern University journalism school.
More than 130 newspapers closed or were absorbed in 2023 in the country, or 2.5 per week, according to this document. By the end of 2024, the United States is expected to have lost a third of its newspapers in just under twenty years.
