Big name news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and CBS News have announced layoffs in recent weeks, while news startup the The Messenger went belly-up — a signal that the decades-long decline of journalism is only worsening.
Job cuts at news companies — which make up a sub-sector of the broader media industry and include digital, print, and broadcast outlets — made up more than 60% of all layoffs in the media sector in January.
If journalism layoffs continue at their current pace, they’ll surpass last year’s by a long shot. And 2023 was already a bad year for news.
In January, the media industry cut about 840 jobs. That’s about 11% more than the number of layoffs during the same month last year. And the news sub-sector of the media industry was hit especially hard. Job cuts at news companies were up a staggering 1,660% from last December.
If cuts continue to total 528 or more throughout the rest of the year, they’d more than double from 2023’s totals to more than 6,300 layoffs this year.
That would require cuts to continue at a very brisk pace, and layoffs can vary greatly from month to month.