Los Angeles Times Informs Around 20% Of Its Newsroom Staff That They're Being Cut

The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday announced that it plans to lay off at least 115 employees, or about 20% of the newsroom, as the paper struggles to stem budget losses.

The move also comes during a tumultuous time at the newspaper. The top editor, Kevin Merida, announced his surprise resignation earlier this month, and last week the newsroom staged a walkout by around 350 employees in the first union-organized work stoppage in the paper’s 142-year history. And two senior editors on the masthead have left the paper in recent days.

The paper’s billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, said in a statement that the layoffs were needed because the newsroom can’t continue to lose $30 million to $40 million a year.

“Today’s decision is painful for all, but it is imperative that we act urgently and take steps to build a sustainable and thriving paper for the next generation. We are committed to doing so,” Soon-Shiong said in an interview with the Times.

Layoffs last June saw around 13% of the newsroom cut, followed by another round of layoffs late last year.

A spokesperson for the Times said the number of cuts will fluctuate as the layoff process laid out in the collective bargaining agreement between the paper and the L.A. Times Guild unfolds over the next 30 days.

The guild’s president, Matt Pearce, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that 94 members were notified on Tuesday that they were being laid off.

“This total, while devastating, is nonetheless far lower than the total number of Guild layoffs initially expected last week,” he said.

In a statement, the L.A. Times Guild said that in the contract negotiated in 2019, management could have offered buyouts instead of layoffs that were "handled in a brutal and inhumane way."

"The staffing cut is the fruit of years of middling strategy, the absence of a publisher, and no clear direction,” the guild said in its statement. “It is still unclear who is in charge of our newsroom more than a week after our elective editor resigned."

The guild added that the L.A. Times plays an important role in a vibrant democracy, “but a newspaper can’ play that role when its staff has been cut to the bone."

Laid off employees took to X to share news of their fate. Among those affected were the business, music and photo teams. Also facing layoffs were the De Los team, a vertical launched last year that was focused on reporting on the Latinidad experience, as well as the 404 team, which launched in 2022 with the promise of “ushering in a new era of audience engagement.” Employees in the paper’s Washington, D.C., bureau were also laid off.

On Monday, Pearce shared that 10 members of Congress had sent a letter to him and Soon-Shiong urging them to work together to “avoid a drastic measure that would harm the outlet’s ability to report on important news in our city and nationwide.”

“As we approach upcoming elections, the role of news outlets in providing accurate and unbiased information becomes even more vital,” the congressional members, which included Reps. Jimmy Gomez, Judy Chu, Robert Garcia and Adam Schiff wrote. “Our community relies on the newspaper to stay informed about local and national events, and a reduction in reporters could have a detrimental impact on the quality of reporting.”

Despite falling print subscriptions, the Los Angeles Times has the highest circulation for a newspaper on the West Coast and has established itself as a national paper with a California focus. On a recent AirTalk episode, guests pointed to the paper's important role in covering California, with its proximity to the Asian Pacific region. Powerful actors like the tech industry and Hollywood also funnel federal political funding through the state. And given that California is the fifth largest economy in the world, the newspaper, guests said, plays a vital role in the national media landscape.

Erika D. Smith, a columnist at the paper and a chair of the guild’s Black Caucus, said there was a lot of “shock right now and a lot of sadness" among the staff after the announcement on Tuesday.

“There's about a dozen journalists, Black journalists who were affected by the layoffs, it really decimated the number of Black people we have on the masthead at the LA Times,” she said. “There's only one person left by my count.”

A joint statement from the guild's caucuses said the planned cuts would decimate their membership.

"The Latino Caucus will lose 38% of its members. The Black Caucus will lose 36% of its members. The Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA) caucuses will lose 34% of their combined membership," the statement added.

Smith said when Soon-Shiong bought the paper there was a push to diversify the newsroom to better reflect Southern California’s population.

“I think we had a pretty substantial diverse staff, definitely one of the most diverse newsrooms I've ever worked in, personally,” she said. “I think it's going to affect coverage in a way that we don't really know what that's going to look like obviously when it comes to covering Latino communities, AAPI, Black communities.”