The Los Angeles Times building in El Segundo, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Penske Media via Getty Images)
Earlier this week, management at the Los Angeles Times began reaching out to some staffers with an offer. The calls marked a quiet revival of the newsroom’s campaign to reduce headcount, this time focused on a select group of employees who had previously volunteered to leave during an earlier round of cuts. I’m told the new offers, which staffers were given just 48 hours to accept or decline, were largely directed at senior newsroom veterans, presumably those with higher salaries that management is eager to move off the payroll.
The buyout offers quickly drew the attention of the L.A. Times Guild. Suffice to say, the union was not pleased. In a note to members, which Status obtained, interim Guild chair Matt Hamilton said the “rushed/botched buyout offer egregiously violates our contract.” Hamilton noted that management had a contractual obligation to notify the union of a buyout, which he indicated it failed to do. More importantly, he said the offer “was roughly half of what select members were entitled to under our initial contract”—perhaps explaining the unusually short window to accept it.
“We immediately notified the company of their contract breach and expect this will be discussed Thursday in bargaining,” Hamilton wrote to members. In a statement to Status, he added that the union hopes to “reach a favorable resolution” with management “soon.”
Regardless of how this particular dispute shakes out, it likely won’t be the last round of cost-cutting measures implemented at the newspaper by its red-pilled biotech billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and his management team. I’m told that…
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The Washington Post building. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WaPo's Rebuttal Risk: This appears to be a disaster in the making. The WaPo's executive editor, Matt Murray, announced Wednesday that the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper will begin allowing story subjects to annotate articles that mention them—a clear attempt to innovate, embrace new technology, and “deepen the conversation” on Post-owned platforms rather than cede it to platforms such as X.
But the plan immediately raised a number of thorny questions. While Murray said editors will retain control over what gets published, it is hard to see how this won't…
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