McClatchy cuts more than 90 newsroom jobs across at least 13 papers
The Miami Herald lost more than 30 roles, over a third of its editorial staff. El Nuevo Herald was almost emptied. Lexington lost 13 of 23 newsroom posts. Chatham Asset Management owns the chain.
Miami2 min read
Last updated
McClatchy dismissed more than 90 journalists last Thursday across at least 13 newspapers in eight states, according to union counts and staff who spoke to The New York Times and Poynter. The chain owns the Miami Herald, the Sacramento Bee, the Kansas City Star and 27 other titles. It is owned by the investment firm Chatham Asset Management.
The Miami Herald lost more than 30 roles, more than a third of the editorial staff, and eliminated vacant posts on top of the live jobs. Deputy investigations editor Carol Marbin Miller called the day a blood bath. She said she had lived through earlier rounds and could not remember a single day that wiped 30 slots off the slate. The paper lost its city of Miami and Miami Beach beats. Miller asked how a desk moves pieces when it has no pieces left.
El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language sister paper, was almost entirely cleared, four or five people familiar with the cuts told the Times. In the Pacific Northwest the guild said 17 journalists went, about a third of unionised staff, at the Bellingham Herald, the Idaho Statesman, The News Tribune, the Tri-City Herald and The Olympian. The Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky laid off 13 of 23 newsroom employees. The Charlotte Observer lost nearly a quarter of its newsroom, the Charlotte Ledger reported.
Greg Farmer, executive vice president of local news, sent an internal email on Thursday afternoon. The company had not issued a public statement by that evening. Unions said the cuts hit reporters, photographers and videographers on government, education, accountability and sports. Several staff described Thursday as the worst single day in more than seven years.
The layoffs follow a fight inside the company over a generative system McClatchy called a content scaling agent. More than 30 Sacramento Bee journalists said earlier this year they would withhold bylines from stories the tool built from their existing work. The sequence is now on the record: a scaling product, then a reduction of the humans who feed it.
McClatchy papers still cover courts, city halls and storms in markets where they are often the last full newsroom. A third off Miami, a third off the north-west cluster, half of Lexington, and the near-closure of El Nuevo Herald change what those cities can expect to read about themselves next month. Chatham's interest is the remaining cash flow. The guild in Idaho and Washington said the firm had chosen short-term profit over the towns on the masthead. That is an interested quote. The headcount is not. More than 90 jobs, 13 papers, eight states, and a Spanish-language newsroom reduced to almost nothing.
