Nolte: Far-Left Axios Axes 10% of Staff During Election Year

Jim VandeHei, Co-Founder and CEO, Axios, listens during the Milken Institute Global Confer
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

Axios, a far-left propaganda site, announced on Tuesday it would slash 10 percent of its 500-person staff.

During an election year?

Naturally, Axios announced these layoffs in the coldest way imaginable… Instead of meeting with each person, the company released a company-wide email written like one of those stupid posts you see on Axios:

Headline: Difficult Changes

Sub-headline: We’re making some difficult changes to adapt fast to a rapidly changing media landscape.

And then we get to my favorite part… And no, I’m not making this up… An actual “WHY IT MATTERS”…

Why it matters: We’re eliminating about 50 positions to get ahead of tectonic shifts in media, technology, and reader/needs habits. …

If your job is being eliminated, you will receive an accompanying email in the next few minutes with information about your severance package and a calendar invite for a meeting with your leader from your team and a member of the People Team.

Who talks like this?

People Team?

If I had to lay off ten percent of the staff, that stupid People Team would be the first to go.

Axios Co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei poses for a portrait at Axios headquarters in Arlington, VA on April 08, 2024. (Photo by Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Axios Co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei poses for a portrait at Axios headquarters in Arlington, VA on April 08, 2024. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei authored the memo and added that he had wanted to meet with everyone getting the boot individually, “but the mechanics of that proved infeasible.”

“Today is a sad day, and our full emphasis will be on handling a hard moment with grace, empathy, and honesty,” VandeHei added. “Our departing colleagues will be treated with great respect, and with thoughtful severance packages to provide runway toward their next opportunity.”

This Friday will be the last day for most of those being laid off.

It’s a curious time to lay off ten percent of your staff. Here we are about 90 days away from what will not only be a consequential presidential race, but an unprecedented one. We’ve already had one assassination attempt and one major candidate (the sitting president) bow out of the race. Additionally, we have the Olympics, a struggling economy, and a growing war in the Middle East.

This should be the boomiest of all boom times for a trusted and serious news outlet. Ah, well, there’s the problem. Axios is neither trusted nor serious. Axios is a joke, a purveyor of misinformation.

John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook

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