Big Media had a very dark Friday.
First, there was news that the once iconic Sports Illustrated magazine was laying off its entire staff.
Now comes news that the Los Angeles Times, the Democrats’ favorite propaganda outlet on the West Coast, is laying off a significant number of its employees.
The layoffs could impact at least 100 journalists or about 20% of the newsroom in a move to address the paper’s financial pressures, the Los Angeles Times reported separately, citing people familiar with the matter.”The management needs to come to the bargaining table in good faith and work out a buyout plan with us that would first articulate a clear headcount or cost saving they’re aiming for,” the guild said in a statement, adding that the management should then try to hit that number with as few layoffs as possible.In an emailed response to Reuters, the guild said it was unaware of the number of job cuts.
It response, the unionized Los Angeles Times staffers launched a one-day strike, the first walkout in the newspaper’s 142-year history.
Among the issues, the union is worried about the impact to . . . ‘accountability journalism‘.
“The management of the Los Angeles Times has announced that it intends to imminently lay off a significant number of journalists, and is asking the Guild to gut seniority protections in our union contract so they have vastly more freedom to pick whom to lay off,” the Times Guild said in a statement about the strike.“This will greatly damage our ability to provide the accountability journalism so important to Southern California.”The walkout comes at a turbulent time for the storied newspaper. Two weeks ago, the paper’s executive editor Kevin Merida resigned over billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s alleged editorial interference, among other issues, the Wrap reported.
It gets better. The newspaper managers are trying to make arrangements with the union to swap traditional seniority protections for those related to diversity.
Soon-Shiong and other managers asked the union’s bargaining unit to relax provisions in its contract intended to protect journalists with seniority from layoffs. If the union agreed to that, the company would offer affected employees a buyout package in advance of any layoff, managers said.Soon-Shiong wants to make cuts while also retaining diverse staff members who have joined the paper in recent years as the organization has prioritized its efforts to boost the number of journalists of color to better reflect the community that it serves.“After so many decades of falling short, we are finally making real strides toward accurately reflecting our city and region,” L.A. Times Guild Caucus leaders wrote in a letter to Soon-Shiong and his wife, Michele Chan Soon-Shiong, earlier this week. The group includes caucuses representing Black, Latino, Asian American, Middle Eastern, South Asian and LGBTQ+ staff members.“As you navigate financial pressures in our industry, we urge you to avoid undoing the diversity that we’ve worked so hard to build,” the Guild Caucus leaders wrote. “Layoffs would be catastrophic, eliminating new and essential voices and diminishing the gains we’ve made under your family’s leadership.”
The newspaper’s management may wish to reflect on Boeing’s recent experiences with the consequences of diversity-oriented employment practices.
Live by DEI, die by DEI.
Needless to say, this drama isn’t stirring sympathy in the hearts of Americans who like their news provided without woke messaging and smears on traditional American values.
It will be interesting to see what the media landscape is like at the end of 2024.
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