LA Times Guild Lambasts ‘Devastating’ Newsroom Layoffs: ‘It Did Not Have to Be This Way’

Blaming the paper’s billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong for the cuts, the Guild says, “This staffing cut is the fruit of years of middling strategy … and no clear direction”

The Los Angeles Times building
The Los Angeles Times building (Credit: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Times Guild responded to mass layoffs being implemented on Tuesday, blaming owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and saying the job cuts are “the fruit of years of middling strategy, the absence of a publisher and no clear direction.”

On Tuesday, the LA Times began notifying those impacted by the cuts, which includes 115 staffers, of which 94 are union members. The cuts represent more than 20 percent of the newsroom.

“It is still unclear who is in charge of our newsroom more than a week after our executive editor resigned,” the guild wrote in a statement. 

Comments