Los Angeles Times cutting 74 positions

Times Executive Editor Kevin Merida is grilled by staff over 73 layoffs - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

 

No kidding.

 

I wonder, why was this a Zoom meeting?

It seems very cowardly and cold, and frankly, unlike the LAT newsroom, the vibrancy of which has always been espoused, and is usually felt, from the top, right on down to those frustrated, angry staff members.

I remember being amidst a couple of exactly those types of meetings -- an earlier round of explanations of similar layoffs/cutbacks and The Staples Center advertising issue come to mind -- and the top managers were always there, in person, facing their newsroom personnel and its questions, in the same tense, emotional, sometimes combative situations.

 

No offense but anyone in this day and age who is giving their heart and soul to a newspaper company is a moran.

 

Am I the only one stunned that 74 positions is ONLY about 10-15% of the newsroom?

Even at the L.A. Times?

 

They've hired up pretty good. I'd say outside the Post, NYT and WSJ, they're the biggest "legacy media" newsroom in the country.

I'm assuming Merida, who just started there, had to know this was coming. If he didn't, he should be pissed, I feel like that's a warn-new-exec-ahead-of-time situation. If he did and took the job anyway, he can handle the arrows.

 

I believe at their peak they had more than 1,200 in the newsroom, which was about double the Chicago Tribune newsroom at the time. Which was just part of the L.A./Chicago resentment that simmered when the "smaller" Tribune Company took over the Times-Mirror papers.

 

"Do more with less."

How?

"Be robust."

SMH

 

My girlfriend mentioned the "do more with less" phrase the other day. I forget the context. I told her of the PTSD journalists had when hearing that and explained how it was used in the newspaper world. Her reply: "That's stupid."

 

I first heard it about 30 years ago from a state official I was talking with. His agency had been hit by budget cuts but he was promoting the "we'll just have to do more with less" stupidity.

Fucking morons. At some point the tired, angry people doing more with less give up, leave or both.

It reminds me of coaching staffs at bowl games when half the staff leaves for another school. GAs become assistants for a month. An assistant coaches three positions. The consultant gets a quickly updated contract. And then they lose by 2-3 touchdowns while still trying to recruit and do more with less.

 

Merida's hiring as executive editor was announced May 3, 2021. I'll let others decide if that qualifies as "just started there."

Kevin Merida named Los Angeles Times executive editor - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

 

I got my years confused. Oops.