London – The last two weeks have been tense, with some of the leading US media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN International, Gannett, and BuzzFeed reporting a lack of coverage over layoffs, broadcast shutdowns, and strikes. It has been seen since the height of the covid-19 crisis.
The culmination of the crisis was the strike of more than 1,000 unionized employees of the New York Times, who sat idle for 24 hours on Thursday (8) in response to the failure to reach agreement on the new employment contract being negotiated. by the New York Times Guild.
Protests were held outside the newspaper’s headquarters, where strikers and supporters questioned salaries deemed inadequate due to the company’s high profits. No agreement could be reached on issues such as remote working and fringe benefits.
The union wants the annual minimum wage of $65,000 (R$341,000), a 10% increase after the contract is approved, and a 5.5% increase in 2023 and 2024.
The New York Times offered $60,000 (R$315,000) and rose to $62,500 in 2024, an increase of 5.5% and a yearly increase of 3% after approval.
In a statement released on the eve of the strike, the union claimed the proposal “still hasn’t caught up with the economic momentum, lagging far behind inflation and the average US wage growth rate”.
— NYTimesGuild (@NYTimesGuild) December 8, 2022
The New York Times’ position is vulnerable to the returns promised to shareholders and large investments in acquisitions this year.
NYT acquired Worldle game and sports website The Athletic to increase viewership.
Also read | The New York Times goes shopping, hits ambitious goal of 10 million subscribers ahead of schedule
Internally, the discourse is different. CEO Meredith Kopit Levien wrote a message to employees the day before the strike, claiming that 40% of the company’s revenue came from the declining printing press and that profits had yet to reach the levels of a few decades ago.
According to the CEO, the minimum wage that NewsGuild charges will add more than $100 in costs over the term of the contract and “make it difficult for us to sustain our investment in journalism.”
The newspaper did not stop distributing or updating the site because it prepared itself with pre-made content and not all employees participated in the movement limited to union members.
The last interruption in the New York Times, which lasted more than a few hours, was in 1965.
Gannett, American print media star
A week before the New York Times strike, the Gannett conglomerate was back in the headlines, including the New York newspaper itself, to face the significant financial losses it had incurred.
Gannett is the largest print media group in the US with publications such as USA Today. By August, the group had laid off 400 people and confirmed it would not be hiring new ones.
In October, Mike Reed’s CEO sent a memo informing the team about the temporary suspension of pension fund payments, ordering employees to take one week’s unpaid leave in December, and announcing a severance schedule for voluntary layoffs.
Also read | The largest newspaper publisher in the US, Gannett, suffers financial and image crisis due to pay inequality
On December 1, another bombshell came: 200 professionals were laid off. According to the New York Times, the plan is to hack 6% of the media division, which has approximately 3,400 employees.
He cut the Washington Post magazine
The cut was picky at the Washington Post, and he mowed down the prestigious Sunday magazine that has been around for more than 60 years. The final issue will be published on Christmas Day.
Although the newspaper announced hiring and vacancies for the new climate journalism project, there was no reallocation of the team to other areas.
Also read | Washington Post Announces Data and Public Service-Driven Climate Journalism Program
According to Shani George, the newspaper’s vice president of communications, 10 employees of the magazine lost their jobs.
The Post published an article about the end of the print magazine, where it hailed editor-in-chief Sally Buzbee for the publication earlier this year.
He said the magazine did an excellent job and the paper was “dedicated to print”, but that commitment didn’t last long.
The Post Guild union made a statement saying it was outraged by the dismissal of award-winning professionals such as the Pulitzer.
Among those fired with the cut of the magazine is Sarah L. Kaufman, one of the last regular dance critics in American journalism. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Critics in 2010 for a series of reports on great artists.
The dismissal sparked criticism in dance journalism circles.
Back to you Joe!???????? https://t.co/co2MS5qssX
—Sarah Kaufman (@SarahLKaufman) December 4, 2022
Cutouts on American CNN in a crisis year
CNN International warned that “aggressive changes” were coming in November, in another part of a crisis cycle in which it had to fire star Chris Cuomo, replace its CEO, and shut down the CNN+ broadcast project a month after its launch.
A statement from CEO Chris Licht on December 1 confirmed the cuts but didn’t say how many, focusing instead on explaining the changes to the schedule.
The cuts came at the same time as the layoffs of professionals at CNN Brasil, but neither side mentioned each other in communiqués on the decisions.
According to an article by CNN Business, there will be “hundreds” of those fired at CNN International, including presenter Robin Meade, political reporter Chris Cillizza, and cast members like commentators Susan Glasser and Jonathan Martin.
Licht takes over CNN International Jeff Zucker exitin February.
He resigned after revealing his secret relationship with Allison Gollust, the network’s vice president and head of marketing. He also resigned in one of the scandals of one of the most important American media companies.
After merging the operation that combined Warner Media and Discovery and shutting down CNN+, which cost 360 employees, it fell to Licht to reorganize finances in an adverse scenario.
CNN Business, which reported on the layoffs, noted that the company still announced hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.
But in August, the New York Times S&P projects CNN’s 2022 profit to be $956.8 million, falling below $1 billion for the first time in five years.
BuzzFeed, American digital media star
At BuzzFeed, once a digital media hotspot, layoffs have hit 12% of the workforce, a total of 180 professionals.
In a statement to the stock market regulator SEC (The Securities and Exchange Commission) revealed the company’s monetization challenge, hurdles big and small.
The text explains that the layoffs “are aimed at reducing the company’s costs” in response to factors such as “challenging macroeconomic conditions”, “eliminating redundancies where available” and “viewers’ continued shift to the short and vertical video formats BuzzFeed uses”. continues to evolve in terms of monetization.”
American media was doing well until 2021
The job crisis in 2022 is a spin on a situation that looks positive in 2021.
A Pew Research Center report released Oct. 13 found that 11 percent of high-circulation newspapers (those with a Sunday average circulation of 50,000 or more) suffered layoffs, three times higher than in the previous year (%) 33). ), when the coronavirus pandemic shook the country’s economy.
The 2021 issue is the lowest percentage of major newspapers laid off since the Center began tracking this trend in 2017.
The result was attributed to the warming of the economy. But in 2022, the winds seem to be blowing against the industry.
Also read | Interview | Rosental Alves analyzes climate change news and shows the ways of journalism
source: Noticias
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.