500 Journalists Laid Off In January

Over 500 journalists were laid off from news outlets in January, according to Politico citing a new report released Thursday, as many organizations continue to struggle financially.

The layoffs reflect the grim state of the news business. In January alone, the industry — including print, broadcast and digital media — saw 538 announced layoffs, according to the report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The job cuts come after an already bleak year. The news industry shed 3,087 digital, broadcast and print news jobs in 2023 — the highest annual total since 2020, when 16,060 cuts were recorded.

In the last month, dozens of layoffs were announced at outlets including NBC News, Time magazine, Business Insider and The Los Angeles Times — the last of which saw more than 100 employees cut. Pitchfork is also facing layoffs as it’s being folded into men’s magazine GQ, and Sports Illustrated is shedding a “significant reduction” of its 100-member workforce. Staffers at Condé Nast walked off the job over the company’s plan to lay off staff.

And, less than a year after it launched, The Messenger shut down “effective immediately” on Wednesday, leaving its journalists without a job. (Numbers from The Messenger’s layoffs were not included in the 538 job cuts reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.)

The LA Times cut more than 70 positions in June and The Washington Post eliminated 240 jobs through a voluntary separation package in October.

The layoffs also come during an election year, triggering worry over how outlets can sustain robust political coverage. The LA Times cuts are “gutting our Washington bureau in an election year,” union Chair Brian Contreras said in a statement.

The eliminations at the LA Times will have “devastating” implications for the publication’s journalists of color if the layoffs go as expected, according to the newsroom’s Latino, Black, Asian American Pacific Islander and Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian caucuses.

The Latino caucus would lose 38 percent of its members, the Black caucus would lose 36 percent of its members, and the AAPI and MENASA caucuses would lose 34 percent of their combined membership, according to a statement.

January was one of the biggest months for layoffs in almost 15 years, a new report found, as more than 82,000 people lost their jobs. The largest sectors for layoffs were finance, tech, food production and retail, and companies cited restructuring, closing, market conditions and cost-cutting as the biggest reasons for the staffing changes.