Big cuts at one of America's largest newspaper chains: McClatchy
Just in: McClatchy closes its Washington bureau, eliminates its real-time national news operation, etc.
Truth be told, McClatchy never was a top player. When it bought Knight Ridder, it was like the Los Angeles Angels buying the New York Yankees. Mismanaged and overmatched from the moment it bought KR, McClatchy's serial cutbacks, layoffs, foreign bureau closings, bankruptcy filings, pension failures, and so on were easily predictable.
It also slowly undermined KR's top-notch Washington bureau, and this week, it announced that the bureau would be closed.
From media reporter Oliver Darcy this evening:
McClatchy’s Quiet Cuts
McClatchy, the 168-year-old newspaper chain, has gutted its national news operation—another reminder of how once-towering (sic) newspaper giants are struggling to survive.
On Monday morning, staffers across McClatchy’s real-time news desk received an unexpected invitation to a hastily arranged Zoom meeting at noon. The calendar invite was vague, referring only in general terms to a restructuring update. The team wasn’t too taken aback by it; they knew change was coming. But they didn’t anticipate what awaited them when they logged on.
When the journalists on the nearly two dozen-strong team joined the call, they were hit with stunning news: McClatchy was eliminating the entire real-time news operation, which effectively operated as its national breaking news desk. The announcement left the team reeling. Their employment, they were told, would end on November 14.
“We were not expecting for the team to be cut,” one impacted staffer told Status.
The real-time desk wasn’t the only casualty in the latest round of layoffs sweeping through the storied newspaper company behind The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee, and Charlotte Observer, affecting dozens of employees. Status has learned that McClatchy also informed its Washington, D.C.-basedteam that it’s bureau will be shuttered. The move means the company will no longer employ reporters dedicated to covering Congress and the White House and withdraw from the White House pool where it has been a longtime member. Elsewhere in the organization, the audience engagement team was also hit, though the extent of those cuts remains unclear.
--no public comment as yet from McClatchy - maybe there's nobody left to comment.. |
