Posts tagged layoffs
We also spent a great deal of time analyzing how we utilize and deploy photojournalists across all of our locations in the U.S. […] We looked at the impact of user-generated content and social media, CNN iReporters and of course our affiliate contributions in breaking news. Consumer and pro-sumer technologies are simpler and more accessible. Small cameras are now high broadcast quality. More of this technology is inthe hands of more people. After completing this analysis, CNN determined that some photojournalists will be departing the company.
Jack Womack, CNN’s SVP of domestic news operations, in a memo to staff announcing 50 layoffs at the news organization. Among those fired were about a dozen photographers.
Womack suggests that User Generated Content via iReport, and improving cameras used to capture images, made the photojournalists obsolete.
Gannett To Lay off 700
Jim Hopkins of the independent Gannett Blog reports that the media giant is letting 700 people go and asking others to take unpaid furloughs to prevent further layoffs.
Today’s disclosure of 700 newspaper layoffs is the single largest round since July 2009, when the U.S. newspaper division eliminated about 1,400 jobs, mostly through layoffs. This is the fourth mass layoff since August 2008.
Gannett had 32,600 employees worldwide at the end of last year, according to the most recent figures available. About 22,400 of those were at U.S. newspapers.
Today’s cuts came after many newspaper workers took one-week unpaid furloughs during the current quarter. And they come three months after GCI disclosed that Chairman and CEO Craig Dubow got paid $9.4 million last year — twice what he earned in 2009. Other senior executives also got huge raises, company documents show.
Is Failure AOL's Best Option?
Last Thursday at paidContent’s New York conference, AOL Chief Tim Armstrong confirmed that the acquisition of Huffington Post would also entail a number of layoffs.
One week later the cuts begin.
Business Insider reports 200 people in editorial are out.
Jeff Bercovici of Forbes (and former AOL Daily Finance alum) writes, “While CEO Tim Armstrong says he won’t comment on who’s going and who’s staying until everyone affected has been notified, it sure sounds like AOL’s news, politics and business/finance sites are simply going away.
There’s a different take on AOL today, though, from Martin Peers of the Wall Street Journal. He asks whether failure AOL’s best option.
There has to be a big chance the AOL chief executive’s strategy of investing heavily in original content won’t work, at least not fast enough to offset AOL’s gradually shrinking Internet-access revenue. If it doesn’t, it’s a good bet Mr. Armstrong will abandon the strategy and instead sell off AOL piece by piece. That could generate north of $30 a share, calculates RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler.
One reason why investors can be confident Mr. Armstrong won’t show endless patience: He has put his money where his mouth is. The CEO has been buying stock himself at about $21. The finance chief has stock options exercisable above $23. That gives the management team an incentive to lift the stock significantly higher than its current price of about $19.25.
Could be the best option for management.
For everyone else we have real people and real layoffs. We hope those affected land properly on their feet.
