'Los Angeles Times' lays off 115 journalists in the face of “another year of heavy losses”

The Los Angeles Times

laid off 115 employees this Tuesday.

The workers of the most important newspaper in the American West received an email this morning from Human Resources informing them that they had been part of a cut that has affected just over 20% of the workforce.

In a report, the newspaper assured that the measure responds to the financial difficulties faced by the organization, which predicts that 2024 will be "another year of heavy losses."

The dismissals were carried out four days after the newspaper's journalists staged the first strike in their history.

“Management has informed me that 94 members of our union have been fired today, a quarter of our organization,” Matt Pearce, the leader of the LA Guild, the newspaper's union, announced in the morning.

The group was founded in 2018 after the newspaper was acquired by doctor Patrick Soon-Shiong, a pioneer in pancreas transplants whose fortune is around $5.5 billion.

The arrival of the magnate to the media, born in 1881, was not the financial balm that many believed.

Since then, the

has had annual losses between 30 and 40 million dollars.

“Today's decision is painful for everyone, but it is imperative that we act urgently and take steps to build a sustainable and successful newspaper for the next generation,” said Soon-Shiong.

The union has criticized the owner's decision.

“Cutting a quarter of our newsroom is devastating by any measure,” he says.

The group recalls that the media laid off another 74 employees last summer, amounting to a loss of 37% of the workforce in less than a year.

And he accuses that the reduction has mainly affected younger employees and employees of black and Latino ethnicity.

“The company could have avoided this by choosing to make offers for voluntary departures, but it was not the chosen path,” the message continues.

The crisis, the union continues, has been caused by the leadership, who has injected into the institution a “mediocre” strategy, the absence of a general editor (Kevin Mérida resigned at the beginning of this year after two and a half years in office). and the lack of direction.

Among the hundred journalists and writers that the

is losing today is Kimbriell Kelly, the Washington bureau chief.

Kelly is the second woman to hold this important position and the first black person to direct the office's political information.

The newspaper boasted the arrival in its pages of the journalist, who won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2016 with a topic about abuses by FBI agents.

Already at the

, Kelly edited coverage about George Tyndall, a gynecologist at the University of Southern California who had raped hundreds of women over 25 years.

The series won the first Pulitzer in 17 years for the Los Angeles newspaper.

The newspaper has also gotten rid of Jean Guerrero, the only Latina columnist it had in its Opinion section.

“It's a black day,” the journalist, who also wrote a book about Stephen Miller, Trump's radical immigration advisor, wrote in X.

Guerrero is one of the few authors who spoke to the younger Hispanic audience, a sector that the newspaper has tried to conquer in recent years with the launch of products such as 404, a digital section, and De Los, aimed at Latinos.

This initiative has been weakened after several layoffs.

Joaquín Castro, the Latino congressman from Texas, has highlighted the loss of plurality in the newsroom.

“In recent years, the

has made considerable efforts to make the newsroom more diverse.

Today they laid off more than 100 people, many of them people of color.

“They were people dedicated to serving their communities, which is an immense loss for the industry,” the Democratic legislator wrote on social media.

The crisis that the Los Angeles newspaper with the largest circulation is now facing highlights the turbulent days that the press is going through.

The

, owned by Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, laid off 240 journalists in 2023. Last week,

, the most influential sports magazine with 70 years of history, announced the termination of 82 employees. .

Your future is at risk.

was announced

, a brand that was absorbed by GQ magazine during times of editorial contraction.