The Los Angeles Times’ union is calling for a one-day strike after newsroom leaders told staff Thursday that they are planning another round of layoffs.

The strike, planned for today, will be the first union-led work stoppage at the paper since its founding in 1881. The company declined to comment on the scope of the impending layoffs, though Times staff writer Meg James reported that the Times plans to cut “at least 100 journalists, or about 20% of the newsroom.”

Financial challenges have compelled the company to seek layoffs, Los Angeles Times spokesperson Hillary Manning said.

“We need to reduce our operating budget going into this year and anticipate layoffs. The hardest decisions to make are those that impact our employees, and we do not come to any such decisions lightly,” Manning wrote in an emailed statement. “We are continuing to review the revenue projections for this year and taking a very careful look at expenses and what our organization can support.”

Times leadership and the union have clashed over how to execute the layoffs. The company wants to bypass seniority protections in the union’s contract, according to the union. In their email to staff Thursday, newsroom leaders said that having more flexibility in deciding who they cut will allow them to save 50 union positions.

The union is characterizing the request as an “impossible” choice.

“The changes to our contract that management is trying to pressure us into accepting are obscene and unsustainable,” Brian Contreras, the union’s unit council chair, said in a press release. “If this newsroom will ever be a place where reporters can have a reliable, steady job and put down roots in Los Angeles, that will only happen through the preservation of our seniority protections.”

In recent years, the Times has tried to diversify its hiring, but those new hires would be among the first to be laid off under the contract’s seniority protections. Company leaders appeared to acknowledge this in their email to staff, writing that they had received a letter from the union’s affinity caucuses urging them to “maintain the gains in diversity achieved over the last five years.”

Instead of eliminating seniority protections, the union has proposed that the Times offer buyouts to all union members and credit any buyouts to the total number of layoffs it is seeking. Buyouts would help preserve the newsroom’s recent progress in diversifying its staff, the union argued.

After management first notified the union’s bargaining committee of its layoff plans Wednesday, the union called an emergency meeting for the next day. More than 300 members showed up, the Times reported.

Last year, the Times went through a round of layoffs in December that saw at least nine people cut and a much larger one in June that affected more than 70 employees. Times owner and billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong also sold The San Diego Union-Tribune as part of the June cuts.

The June layoffs were the first at the company in nearly five years and surprised staff, who had hoped that Soon-Shiong’s ownership of the paper would protect them from the cuts that had plagued the rest of the industry.

News of the planned layoffs comes less than a week after former executive editor Kevin Merida stepped down. He told the Times that his decision was informed by multiple factors, including “differences of opinion about the role of an executive editor, how journalism should be practiced and strategy going forward.”

TheWrap reported that Soon-Shiong interfered with newsroom decisions, causing Merida to ultimately decide to leave five months before his contract was up. (The Times denied any newsroom interference.) Merida was also frustrated that he could not get clear budget figures for the newsroom, according to TheWrap, even though the paper was losing tens of millions of dollars every year as it struggled to gain subscribers.

Prior to Soon-Shiong’s ownership, the Times underwent numerous rounds of buyouts and layoffs. At least three former executive editors departed the paper due to budget disagreements with former owner Tribune Company.

In 2005, John Carroll resigned over his belief that cuts would hurt the paper’s quality. He was succeeded by Dean Baquet, who was forced out after he opposed staff reductions. Baquet’s replacement, James O’Shea, was also asked to leave two years later in 2008 when he disagreed with Tribune’s plan to cut staff.

By Angela Fu, media business reporter

Jumping into the Sunday pool

NewsNation political editor Chris Stirewalt. (Courtesy: NewsNation)

Cable news network NewsNation is joining the crowded Sunday morning news landscape. The network has announced that it will now have a Sunday morning public affairs show hosted by political editor Chris Stirewalt. You might remember Stirewalt is the former Fox News political editor who was let go not long after the 2020 presidential election — one in which he helped with Fox’s controversial decision to call the state of Arizona for Joe Biden.

“The Hill Sunday with Chris Stirewalt” will air each Sunday at 10 a.m. Eastern starting March 3.

NewsNation isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. In a release, the show’s description sounds like many of the other Sunday morning news shows: “Every Sunday, the program will feature a variety of politicians and newsmakers discussing the latest political news from the nation’s capital. The program also will feature a panel of guest commentators offering insight and analysis of the week’s key stories.”

In the release, Stirewalt said, “Our industry has a nearly 80-year history of devoting time on Sunday mornings to programming that, in its best form, helps Americans to be better citizens by better understanding their government, the issues we face and their choices as voters. It is a privilege to get to make whatever small contribution I can to that tradition.”

By Tom Jones, senior media writer

Media tidbits and links for your weekend review

• Hindsight is 20/20? Ron DeSantis appears to regret icing out the press during his ongoing run for president. The Florida governor expressed the sentiment Thursday in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, according to Politico, saying he came in “not really doing as much media.” “I should have just been blanketing,” DeSantis said. “I should have gone on all the corporate shows. I should have gone on everything.”
• Even successful billionaires can’t figure out how to make news organizations profitable, The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson write in “Billionaires Wanted to Save the News Industry. They’re Losing a Fortune.”
• A group of 60 self-described “celebrated writers and artists” are launching a cooperatively-owned newsletter that will feature short articles, essays, comics and commentary. They call it Flaming Hydra. Check out a holiday preview edition here.
• Social media companies, nonprofit groups and government agencies put forth a massive effort to limit the spread of bad health information during the pandemic. For Nieman Lab, Sara Talpos explores whether the effort did more harm than good in “Did the battle against ‘misinformation’ go too far?”
• Experts say that a confluence of issues make “the dangers from propaganda, falsehoods and conspiracy theories more dire than ever.” For NBC News, Brandy Zadrozny writes “Disinformation poses an unprecedented threat in 2024 — and the U.S. is less ready than ever.” 
• Don’t miss out on the quirky (and maybe a little creepy?) illustrations in this New York Times opinion piece — “What 17 of Trump’s ‘best people’ said about him” — from Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell, with illustrations by Peter Arkle and design and production from Akshita Chandra. Feels a bit like Scooby Doo villains peering through eye holes in a painting.
• As we reported in yesterday’s Poynter Report, the ABC News debate originally scheduled for last night was canceled due to a lack of participation from Republican presidential candidates. The stage sure does look nice, though.
• The Washington Post is welcoming back one of its former stars: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Robert Samuels. According to the Post’s announcement Thursday, Samuels will be a National enterprise reporter “with a broad mandate to document America at this consequential time.” He left the Post in 2023 for The New Yorker. “Expect great things!” Samuels posted on X Thursday with the link to the announcement. He begins his new role on Feb. 12.
• A new CNN series called “United States of Scandal with Jake Tapper” will “investigate some of the most outrageous and iconic political controversies of the modern era.” The six episodes will include interviews with notable political figures, including Rod Blagojevich, Rielle Hunter, Jim McGreevey and Valerie Plame. The show will begin airing in two-episode premiere on Sunday, Feb. 18 at 9 p.m. Eastern.
• Star Tribune sports columnist Chip Scoggins with an absolutely terrific story of a 14-year-old star basketball player who battles an obsessive-compulsive disorder and another rare condition by embracing who she is: “On the court, Chloe’s ‘secret storm’ clears.”
• Execution by lethal injection is down in the United States, due in part to pharmaceutical companies refusing to sell the drugs to prison agencies and journalistic reports about the complications that some inmates have suffered. Some states have stopped executing prisoners, while others have turned to other executions such as firing squads and gas chambers. For The Marshall Project, Maurice Chammah reports on a new method, “likely be the first execution of its kind anywhere in the world,” in “Vomiting, Seizures, Stroke: What Could Happen in the First Nitrogen Execution in the U.S.”
• And NPR’s Chiara Eisner interviewed Kenneth Smith, the Alabama man who will be the first to put to death in a nitrogen gas execution. Smith, who was convicted in 1988 for a murder-for-hire killing, survived a previous execution attempt. “Everybody is telling me that I’m going to suffer,” he said. “Well, I’m absolutely terrified.”
• New York Magazine’s Elizabeth Weil with “The Women Who Walked Away. What drove a Colorado mother to flee into the Rocky Mountains with her teenage son and her sister?”

Amaris Castillo and Ren LaForme contributed to this edition of The Poynter Report.

More resources for journalists

• The 2024 Poynter Journalism Prizes are now open for entries. To enter, go to the contest website. The deadline for entries is Feb. 16.
• Delve more deeply into your editing skills with Poynter ACES Intermediate Certificate in Editing. Start anytime.
• Lead with Influence 2024 (Seminar) — Apply by Jan. 23, for the February training. Also,  offered in June and Oct. 2024.
• Transforming Local Crime Reporting Into Public Safety Journalism (Seminar) — Apply by Jan. 30.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

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