The Los Angeles Times Guild bargaining committee told union members Monday that it was still negotiating with the company over 56 proposed layoffs, which primarily affect the paper’s digital editors.
The company stunned staff members when it first announced the layoffs last week. Executive editor Kevin Merida told newsroom employees that the cuts were a response to “persistent economic headwinds.” In the union’s update to members, the bargaining committee shared that it had received a confidential briefing about the Los Angeles Times’ finances.
“We can’t disclose the details, but suffice it to say that the company is facing strong economic headwinds,” the committee wrote.
As proposed by the company, the layoffs will include all six of the union’s audio producers as well as 35 of the union’s 61 multiplatform editors. The latter group includes copy editors; audience engagement editors; and news desk editors, who manage the paper’s homepage and news alerts.
Multiplatform editors make up one of the most diverse groups of journalists within the union. The Guild shared a layoff analysis with members Monday that found that the cuts would disproportionately affect Asian American and Latino staff.
“The company wants to blame the contract’s seniority protections for the disparate impact on people of color, without acknowledging that it had many other options — including working with the Guild to develop a more equitable plan, first offering newsroom-wide buyouts, and cutting the growing ranks of upper management,” the bargaining committee wrote in its update.
Los Angeles Times spokesperson Hillary Manning wrote in an email that the cuts affect comparable percentages of union and nonunion members and include members of senior management. She added that the union’s contract states that people who were hired most recently will be the first to be laid off, and recent hires have been more diverse than those made in the past.
“These changes have slowed our momentum in diversifying our newsroom, but we remain committed to diversity and inclusion as core values of our organization,” Manning wrote.
The Los Angeles Times’ layoffs are part of more than 17,000 job cuts made in the media industry so far this year — a record high. More people have lost their job in the first five months of 2023 than the same period in 2020, when 16,750 cuts were announced, according to global outplacement and business coaching firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Other news outlets that have undergone layoffs this year include The Washington Post, NPR and BuzzFeed News.
Media coverage of the Trump secret documents case
Former President Donald Trump leaves the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse, Tuesday, June 13, 2023, in Miami. Trump appeared in federal court Tuesday on dozens of felony charges accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents and thwarting the Justice Department’s efforts to get the records back. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara) (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)
We’ve known it was coming since Thursday, and a similar scenario played out in New York in April, but the footage was stunning nonetheless.
Former President Donald Trump’s motorcade drove past crowds of supporters and critics as he pulled into the parking garage of a downtown Miami courthouse where he surrendered to U.S. marshals.
CNN’s chyron blared: TRUMP NOW UNDER ARREST. The websites of major news outlets published full-width headlines. The New York Times: Trump Surrenders and Is Booked in Miami Federal Court. The Washington Post: Trump booked after arrival at federal court.
The New York Times’ Glenn Thrush, Nicholas Nehamas and Eileen Sullivan put the moment in context. “Nearly two-and-a-half years after leaving the White House, Mr. Trump — twice impeached, previously charged in an unrelated case in New York, still under investigation for his efforts to retain power following his loss in the 2020 election, but currently the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — began the legal process of defending himself against 37 counts lodged against him in the documents case last week by the special counsel, Jack Smith,” they wrote.
No cameras were allowed in the court for the arraignment. A Monday night order barred journalists from using laptops or cellphones during Tuesday’s hearing, even to take notes.
CNN tuned in as Alina Habba, an attorney and spokesperson for Trump, gave a brief statement outside of the Miami courthouse.
“Today is not about President Donald J. Trump, who is defiant,” she said. “It is about the destruction of the long-standing American principles that have set this country apart for so long. … The people in charge of this country do not love America. They hate Donald Trump,”
“OK. Well,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said in response. “That’s a lot of crazy.”
Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 federal criminal counts against him. 45 minutes after he arrived, his motorcade left the court.
CBS News’ Kathryn Watson laid out what happens next.
Teen Vogue seeks college reporters in 2024 battleground states
Teen Vogue is looking for student journalist correspondents in what are expected to be key states in determining the presidency and control of Congress in the 2024 election: Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Politics editor Allegra Kirkland said Teen Vogue’s college correspondent program came out of planning 2024 coverage, and it immediately made sense as an organic way to learn how young people feel about 2024.
The Condé Nast-owned publication, widely noted for its Trump-era pivot to thoughtful yet energetic political coverage that sought to respect its younger readers as politically savvy, is looking to the next election as an inflection point for its audience, with Gen Z and millennial voters set to comprise a formidable voting bloc in 2024.
“The youth vote is always treated as an afterthought because up until now it hasn’t been such a large percentage of the electorate. But that’s going to change as Gen Z grows up and millennials get old,” Kirkland said. “I think this is going to become one of the most discussed segments of the electorate, and I think we’re really well positioned to be able to tell those stories.”
A similar project in 2020 was less focused on student journalists, instead tapping high school and college students to track their thoughts on candidates and how COVID-19 was affecting their lives.
“We wanted to give student journalists more of an opportunity to really dive into political coverage, get some bylines, get paid for their work and be able to experiment with writing for a national publication,” she said.
Undergraduate and graduate students who live in those states and have at least six months of experience writing about politics or general news are invited to apply. Applications are due by July 7.
The best journalism from reporters under 35
The latest winners of the Livingston Awards were announced Tuesday. The awards, from the Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan, honor the best in local, national and international reporting by journalists under the age of 35.
The Local Reporting award went to Anna Wolfe, 28, of Mississippi Today, for “a multiyear investigation into Mississippi’s 2% approval rate of applicants for federal welfare funding.”
The National Reporting award went to Caitlin Dickerson, 33, of The Atlantic, for “a masterful examination of the U.S. government’s child separation policy.” (Tom Jones wrote more about the Atlantic cover story when it was published last year.)
The International Reporting award went to Vasilisa Stepanenko, 22, of The Associated Press, for “a series of harrowing videos exposing the atrocities against civilians committed by Putin’s army in Ukraine.”
Earlier this year, Wolfe, Dickerson and Stepanenko were each honored with Pulitzer Prizes for their work.
Ken Auletta, an author, media and communications writer for The New Yorker and longtime Livingston Awards judge, received a special tribute “for his enduring commitment to the program and the careers of young journalists.”
Media tidbits
- In a new opinion piece for The New York Times, columnist Lydia Polgreen draws a line between the news organizations that have recently seen layoffs and job cuts. “They sought to make quality news for the masses that cost little to nothing to consume,” she writes, tracing the history of low-cost news from penny papers to the current self-cannibalizing digital environment, and what it means for the larger mass media audience.
- For the New Yorker, Jay Caspian Kang writes about FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver, who is expected to leave the organization following cuts from parent company ABC News, in “What Was Nate Silver’s Data Revolution?”
- The Associated Press with, “Pat Sajak announces ‘Wheel of Fortune’ retirement, says upcoming season will be his last as host.”
Today’s edition of the Poynter Report was written by Annie Aguiar, Angela Fu and Ren LaForme.
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