US media rocked by layoffs amid economic gloom

From CNN to the Washington Post, US media are facing tough times, as a series of outlets have announced layoffs this winter amid fears of an economic downturn.

Vox Media, owner of the Vox and The Verge websites as well as the landmark New York Magazine and its online platforms, announced Friday it was letting go seven percent of its staff.

The news follows layoffs at CNN, NBC, MSNBC, Buzzfeed and other outlets.

In a memo to staff on Friday, Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff announced "the difficult decision to eliminate roughly seven percent of our staff roles across departments due to the challenging economic environment impacting our business and industry."

The memo, which was confirmed to AFP by Vox Media, said the affected employees were going to be notified of being let go within the next 15 minutes. That would mean some 130 out of the group's 1,900 staff.

Meghan McCarron, an award-winning journalist who spent more than nine years at Eater, a food website owned by Vox Media, tweeted Friday she was among those laid off -- while 37 weeks pregnant.

Journalists who were laid off from other organizations in recent weeks have also taken to Twitter to express anger, dismay, or gratitude to their colleagues while beginning to look for a new job.

While the media layoffs were not as dramatic as those rocking tech giants such as Microsoft and Google, which announced Friday it was cutting 12,000 more jobs, they were a consequence of falling advertising revenue amid a gloomy economic climate, said Chris Roush, dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

"For a lot of them, they grew and expanded on the expectation that they were going to be able to grow their audience, or either readers or viewers to a certain level," Roush told AFP."And that just hasn't happened and is unlikely to happen given what's happening in the economy."

In recent months, CNN has laid off an estimated several hundred workers out of a total of some 4,000 people, according to US media. CNN would not confirm those figures to AFP.

The cuts took place as the company underwent a restructuring following a merger between Warner Media, which includes CNN and HBO Max, and Discovery. The merger resulted in the creation of the Warner Bros. Discovery mega conglomerate.

MG