Employee morale at the Washington offices of CNN is at a low point after another series of layoffs and buyouts.
On Monday, Politico reported that last Friday, when hundreds of CNN employees lost their jobs, “people were crying all over the bureau” for departing co-workers.
“Morale at the CNN Washington Bureau is about as strong as it is inside the Redskins’ locker room–and the management is just as bad,” a CNN staffer told the news site.
The wave of layoffs was an effort to cut eight percent of CNN’s workforce. 50 employees were cut from the Washington, D.C. bureau alone. But at the same time, 20 new positions were created in the bureau’s digital department.
“Things have been horrible inside the Washington bureau,” CNN reported. “On Friday, which was everyone’s last day, people were crying all over the bureau, but managers hid in offices and didn’t go to any of the goodbye office parties.”
Many employees are “terrified of being let go,” and the whole bureau is working scared.
This was not a total surprise, though. Early in October, news broke that CNN wanted to eliminate almost 1,500 jobs, even as the cable giant was forecasting a $1 billion profit.
But not every employee is taking this with aplomb. CNN was also recently taken for court for age discrimination for some of the layoffs.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com