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The media has seen a cost-cutting bloodbath in recent week with several high-profile news organizations slashing headcount as economic uncertainty and political polarization plagues the industry.
District Media Group President Beverly Hallberg, noting that layoffs are typically the first place media companies tend to cut back, is not surprised by the news across several prominent media companies. While many blame economic hardship, Hallberg believes many news organizations have become too polarizing to continue operating with the status quo.
"Many news outlets have focused more on opinion and actively attacking half of the population than reporting," Hallberg told Fox News Digital.
"It’s not surprising that many readers/viewers have gone elsewhere, especially since the explosion of digital media, which provides a plethora of options," Hallberg continued. "On top of that, you have a struggling economy and a looming recession."
The media has seen a cost-cutting bloodbath in recent week with several high-profile news organizations slashing headcount and announcing looming layoffs as economic uncertainty plaques the industry. (FOX)
Win BIG Media CEO Philip Stutts echoed Hallberg's sentiment, saying the corporate media industry was facing a "tsunami" of factors negatively affecting business, including the state of the U.S. economy, competition from emerging news alternatives, and a flurry of partisan coverage from the traditional corporate press.
"What you’re seeing is people saying I’ve got to make different decisions with my wallet in the recession but also—there’s no balance in any of this coverage anymore," he told Fox News Digital.
Stutts described many traditional news organizations facing layoffs as bloated companies, with overly massive budgets and employees acting like inmates running an asylum. He said "lean and mean" startups filled with independent journalists like Bari Weiss are flourishing while traditional media withers on the vine.
"You know the old saying, ‘Once you go woke, you go broke.’ I mean this is what’s happening with all these big news organizations," he added. "Ultimately people are going to buy good work."
Warner Bros. Discovery’s CNN has eliminated everyone from high-profile talent to rank-and-file staffers in an effort to reduce costs. CEO Chris Licht, who has taken heat for his handling of the mass layoffs, told staffers the cuts were necessary earlier this month as hundreds of employees were let go.
"The changes we are making today are necessary and will make us stronger and better positioned to place big bets going forward without fear of failure," Licht wrote in a memo to staff.
The Washington Post announced last month that it would scrap its stand-alone Sunday print magazine, eliminating 10 positions in the process. Post staffers, part of a paper owned by one of the world's richest men in Jeff Bezos, hoped to receive answers on Wednesday during a town hall with publisher Fred Ryan.
Instead of clarity, Ryan announced additional positions would be eliminated in the first quarter of 2023 and then refused to take questions from the employees of "Democracy Dies in Darkness" paper, saying he didn't want to get into a "grievance session" with the union. The Washington Post Guild blasted Ryan’s behavior as "unacceptable."
Fred Ryan, who serves the chief executive for billionaire Jeff Bezos’ newspaper, shut down inquiries after informing staffers that there would be layoffs during the first quarter of 2023. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
CNN LAYOFFS CONTINUE WITH CHRIS CILLIZZA AMONG PROMINENT STAFFERS LET GO
Morale inside both CNN and the Washington Post is low, according to insiders at both outlets. Part of the problem is how honchos handled the news.
A Washington Post insider criticized Ryan for the way he handled the sober announcement, calling his interaction with employees "awful."
"After the sudden layoff announcement at the magazine, I think people expected other shoes to drop. But to announce something as vague and disturbing as this—and then walk away without taking a single question—is arrogant and rude," they said.
The insider also highlighted how Ryan avoided questions from the audience despite the fact that his comments came during a company town hall filled with professional journalists, in which employees were presumably encouraged to ask questions.
"Terrible internal PR, bound to drive morale lower. And all self-inflicted," the individual added.
GANNETT, CNN, WASHINGTON POST MAKE CUTS IN BRUTAL WEEK FOR MEDIA INDUSTRY AS HUNDREDS LOSE JOBS
As for CNN, Licht has been crushed by a series of reports from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who used to work at CNN and is known to have many well-placed friends. Byers has put a spotlight on Licht informing staffers he didn’t plan on making cuts roughly six months before he sent employees packing, although a CNN spokesman said Licht alluded to possible changes in the future and didn't know at the time that firings were in the offing.
Warner Bros. Discovery also pulled the plug on all live programming at HLN, a sister network of CNN, so longtime morning show anchor Robin Meade was forced out from the network she first joined in 2001 as a result.
CNN CEO Chris Licht took control of CNN earlier this year after a long-planned merger that put CNN under control of the newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery)
Gannett, a newspaper juggernaut that owns dozens of local media outlets along with USA Today, began its latest round of layoffs last month. The cost-cutting effort impacted roughly 6% of the company’s news workforce of about 3,440 employees.
Similarly, NPR, which enacted a near-total hiring freeze in November, has cut $10 million from its budget and ended its summer internship program.
The network's chief executive, John Lansing, said last month that he intended to avoid layoffs, and that he needed to severely curtail hiring. The network also cut back discretionary spending and travel, as part of the $10 million cut, which constitutes 3% of NPR’s annual budget. The 137 job vacancies at the network represent about 11% of its workforce. Lansing also said the company was facing a $20 million decline in corporate sponsorships.
CNN BEGINS LAYOFFS UNDER CHRIS LICHT: 'DIFFICULT TIME FOR EVERYONE'
DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall believes establishment news outlets are now seeing the consequences of abandoning traditional standards of journalism.
"It is true that news consumers now have many options and new avenues from which to consume news, but that only partly explains the financial problems faced by the establishment news industry," McCall told Fox News Digital.
"News consumers departed the mainstream outlets largely because those outlets stopped serving as surrogates for the public. Instead, news organizations got on ideological, activist high horses. As a consequence, credibility ratings for mainstream news cratered. And nobody wants to get news from outlets they can't trust," McCall continued. "There is still a place for traditional, enterprising journalism, but it has to be done fairly and with the interests of the citizenry in mind."
McCall feels Americans don't want "tainted, agenda-driven news."
"The advertisers news outlets need to survive have noticed the audience departure and are acting accordingly," he said.
Not everyone believes media organizations slashing headcount is directly related to political polarization, or anything out of the ordinary, because it happens all the time across various industries.
Attorney Helen Rella, a member of Wilk Auslander’s Global Practice group who specializes in employment law, said that companies routinely review their workforces and make determinations as to who should stick around.
"While it may seem unusual that this is happening across the board in the same industry at the same time, there have been substantial changes in the workforce dynamic since the advent of the COVID pandemic that have caused employers to review their workforces and make changes in light of profitability concerns," Rella told Fox News Digital.
In addition to the traditional news outlets laying off staffers in droves, Twitter was completely overhauled last month when Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the Silicon Valley-based social media platform was finalized. Musk initially informed staffers that about half of the company’s 7,500-person workforce will be losing their jobs, and he has since terminated additional workers for various reasons.
The Walt Disney Company indicated last month it would also cut jobs and implement a hiring freeze. Amazon, Apple, Meta and Lyft are among other companies either implementing hiring freezes or letting workers go.
Fox News’ David Rutz contributed to this report.
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