Following the announcement of USA TODAY chief editor’s resignation, staff downsizing has also been observed in other top media outlets, including BuzzFeed News and Insider.
“The economic headwinds that have hurt many of our clients and partners are also affecting us,” Barbara Peng, the president of Insider, wrote in a memo to employees that the media organization will lay off 10% of its staffers, Daily Beast reported.
“Unfortunately, to keep our company healthy and competitive, we need to reduce the size of our team,” she added.
The recent job cuts are indicative of a wider downturn in both the media and tech industries. This decline comes after the rapid growth observed in the aftermath of the pandemic, which has since significantly slowed down in tandem with a decelerating economy.
Meanwhile, via email to NBC News, Jonah Peretti, the CEO and co-founder of BuzzFeed, explained that the company’s recent job cuts were due to a 15% decrease in the workforce across several teams.
“While layoffs are occurring across nearly every division, we’ve determined that the company can no longer continue to fund BuzzFeed News as a standalone organization,” he wrote.
Previously, USA TODAY’s Editor-in-Chief Nicole Carroll said she would exit the publication on May 1, after having been working there for five years, USA TODAY reported.
The recent media layoffs were a result of declining advertising revenue in a challenging economic environment, even though the scale of the layoffs was not as substantial as those affecting tech giants like Microsoft and Google.
There has been a surge of layoffs throughout the news industry with numerous organizations, including CNN, NBC News, MSNBC, Vox Media, and Gannett, reducing their staff in recent months. Additionally, many news companies that have not resorted to layoffs have implemented drastic cost-cutting measures.
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