{"id":1606540,"date":"2022-08-15T10:48:31","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T14:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1606540"},"modified":"2022-08-15T10:48:35","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T14:48:35","slug":"local-journalists-laid-off-as-media-conglomerate-suffers-heavy-losses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/local-journalists-laid-off-as-media-conglomerate-suffers-heavy-losses\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Journalists Laid Off As Media Conglomerate Suffers Heavy Losses"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flocal-journalists-laid-off-as-media-conglomerate-suffers-heavy-losses%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1606540&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/legacy-media\">Media<\/a> conglomerate Gannett announced on Friday that it would <a href=\"http:\/\/dailywire.com\/topic\/unemployment\">lay off<\/a> staff at local news outlets across the United States following a dismal earnings report.<\/p>\n<p>The company, which owns USA Today and more than 250 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gannett.com\/brands\/\">national and local outlets<\/a>, reported total revenues of $748.7 million and a net loss of $53.7 million in its second quarter \u2014 reflecting a 7.2% decline in margins.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur second quarter results and updated full year outlook reflect industry-wide headwinds in digital advertising as well as rising costs and pressures on consumers which are impacting our near-term performance,\u201d Gannett CEO Michael Reed said in the <a href=\"https:\/\/s1.q4cdn.com\/307481213\/files\/doc_financials\/2022\/q2\/GCI-Q2-2022-EX-99.1-Earnings-Release_FINAL.pdf\">earnings report<\/a>. \u201cDuring the quarter we experienced a rapidly tightening macroeconomic environment caused by rising inflation coupled with distribution labor shortages and price sensitive consumers which has affected our traditional print business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gannett President Maribel Perez then told staff in an email that the firm would begin \u201cnecessary but painful reductions to staffing\u201d while eliminating some open positions, according to media nonprofit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poynter.org\/business-work\/2022\/gannett-lays-off-journalists-after-dismal-second-quarter-results\/\">Poynter<\/a>. Journalists at several outlets \u2014 including the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota, the Monroe News-Star in Louisiana, the Panama City News-Herald in Florida, and the Courier-Journal in Kentucky \u2014 began announcing on social media that they had been dismissed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been transparent about the need to evolve our operations and cost structure in line with our growth strategy while also needing to take swift action given the challenging economic environment,\u201d Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton told Poynter.<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear how many total positions at Gannett were affected. Amid <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/more-small-businesses-are-calling-inflation-their-single-most-important-problem\">inflationary pressures<\/a> that have propelled the United States into a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/white-house-does-preemptive-damage-control-as-economy-heads-toward-recession\">technical recession<\/a>, companies in many other sectors \u2014 including technology \u2014 have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/recession-fears-lead-big-tech-companies-to-pause-hiring-cut-jobs\">slowed hiring<\/a> or introduced layoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Gannett also laid off staff in the spring of 2020 and offered a round of voluntary buyouts to all its employees in the fall of 2020. Roughly 500 buyouts were accepted, with 60 editors, 19 photojournalists, and 124 reporters leaving the company, according to details obtained by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poynter.org\/business-work\/2020\/about-500-people-are-taking-buyouts-at-gannett\/\">Poynter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The layoffs at Gannett continue the progressive decline of local journalism. More than 360 newspapers closed their doors between late 2019 and the spring of 2022, according to a recent report from <a href=\"https:\/\/news.northwestern.edu\/stories\/2022\/06\/newspapers-close-decline-in-local-journalism\/\">Northwestern University<\/a>, meaning that the United States is on pace to lose one-third of its local newspapers between 2005 and 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, 7% of the nation\u2019s counties now have no local newspaper, while 70 million Americans now live in an area with either no local news organization or a local news outlet that is at risk.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInvariably, the economically struggling, traditionally underserved communities that need local journalism the most are the very places where it is most difficult to sustain print or digital news organizations,\u201d Northwestern visiting professor Penelope Muse Abernathy said of the report.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, newsroom employment in the United States has declined 26% since 2008, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2021\/07\/13\/u-s-newsroom-employment-has-fallen-26-since-2008\/\">Pew Research Center<\/a>. Though total employment at newspaper publishers has dropped from roughly 71,100 to 30,800 between 2008 and 2020, employment at digital-native outlets has grown from 7,400 to 18,000 over the same time horizon.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 2,800 news outlets received paycheck protection loans amid COVID and the lockdown-induced recession, with most remaining below $150,000, another analysis by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2020\/10\/29\/nearly-2800-newspaper-companies-received-ppp-loans\/\">Pew Research Center<\/a> found. Because companies with more than 1,000 employees were not eligible for the benefits, Gannett and other conglomerates did not receive funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Media conglomerate Gannett announced on Friday that it would lay off staff at local news outlets across the United States following a dismal earnings report. The company, which owns USA Today and more than 250 national and local outlets, reported total revenues of $748.7 million and a net loss of $53.7 million in its second &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1606616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1606540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1606540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1606616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1606540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1606540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1606540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}