After weeks of rumors, The New York Times announced Wednesday that more than 100 newsroom jobs will be slashed, as “well as a smaller number of positions from its editorial and business operations[.]” If enough people don’t accept buyouts, the ax will fall. According to the Huffington Post, this adds up to a huge 7.5% cut of the overall Times‘ staff.
What has to be especially troubling for the Times is that its new much-hyped digital platforms have failed. According to the paper’s editor Dean Baquet, the NYT Now and NYT Opinion apps are “not achieving the business success we expected.”
NYT Opinion will be killed off.
These digital platforms were the last hope for a New York Times that has seen its physical subscription rates and advertising revenues plummet in recent years.
The note also said financial results from the company’s third quarter, which ended Sunday, had improved from a difficult second quarter. Digital advertising is likely to show growth of about 16 percent in the third quarter, the best quarterly performance since 2010, and digital subscriptions are expected to increase by more than 40,000, the largest number of quarterly additions since 2012.
But the company’s profitability was lower than during the same period last year as costs increased.
As of yet there’s been no word from the Times‘ leftwing stars — Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, etc — about any kind of offer to save these jobs through a personal pay cut.
I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.
John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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