2020 saw a media-jobs bloodbath
THE media industry was racked by a record 30,711 job cuts in 2020 — a stunning increase of 201 percent from a year earlier when 10,201 jobs were lost.
The figures, rolled out Thursday by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, included jobs data from the news industry, advertising, television and movie production.
The dismal results topped the previous all-time record of 28,802 jobs lost in 2008 at the height of the Great Recession. And cutbacks in newsrooms, whether broadcast, digital or print, accounted for more than half the losses, some 16,180 cuts.
Newsrooms from BuzzFeed to Vice began cutting back in droves when the pandemic hit in March and advertising revenue dried up.
And while publishers like Condé Nast and Meredith have reversed pay cuts unveiled last year, others have been unable to do so. For example, a steep, 23 percent pay cut at National Enquirer parent A360 Media remains in place.
Plus, very few companies appear to be adding back furloughed staff. The Challenger report found the media industry has announced plans to add back only 1,615 jobs over 2021.
Despite the first round of COVID vaccines reaching Americans in December, the nation continues to wrestle with the economic fallout of ever-rising cases. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, meanwhile, is predicting a mere 5.3 percent increase in ad spending in 2021 .
Veteran journalist Stephen Adler said he will retire as editorin-chief of Reuters on April 1 as a search begins to find a successor.
Reuters said it will begin the search “in the coming days. The post will be advertised internally and externally on the Thomson Reuters careers site.”
During his Reuters tenure, Adler won seven Pulitzer Prizes. But he also had to contend with what insiders called “monetary strain” as its news staff was downsized to its current level of about 2,500 from 3,000 when he started a decade ago — even as the world became increasingly dangerous for his network of journalists.
In 2019 he worked with humanrights activist Amal Clooney to obtain the release of Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who had been imprisoned for more than 500 days in Myanmar after having been sentenced to seven years in prison by a government unhappy with their reporting.
“Steve has at all times cared deeply about journalists,” said Reuters CEO Michael Friedenberg. “He has labored tirelessly for the safety and freedom for journalists in custody or under risk.”
Adler’s departure is just the latest recent high-level editor’s job to open up. Norm Pearlstine stepped down as LA Times executive editor, and speculation continues to swirl that Marty Baron may soon leave his top job at The Washington Post. There’s also still an editor-in-chief opening at the Huffington Post, which was acquired by BuzzFeed, and at Vox, whose editor-in-chief left to start a non-profit site.
Adler in 2010 jumped from BusinessWeek, where he was editor-inchief, to Thomson Reuters as a senior VP and editorial director of its professional division before being elevated to the top Reuters newsroom role a year later. Earlier in his career he was a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal.
“After 10 years as Reuters editor-inchief and 11 years at Thomson Reuters, I have decided to retire, effective April 1,” said Adler, 65, in an e-mail to employees Wednesday. “It has been an honor, and certainly the highlight of my career, to lead this extraordinary news organization.”
“I am as sad to be leaving as I am proud of the consequential work we have done together.
“If I have one piece of advice, it’s to stay true to the Trust Principles — and preserve our defining commitment to integrity, independence and freedom from bias,” Adler wrote.
The Travel + Leisure travel club and its 60,000 members were the big lures for the nation’s largest timeshare resort company to pay $100 million to buy the publication from Meredith. “They generate a profit of $5 million to $6 million a year,” said Michael Brown, CEO of Wyndham Destinations, referring to the travel club, which bills members $10 to $20 a month. And that’s what Brown plans to expand. He said he plans to change the name of the publicly traded company to the Travel + Leisure Company, effective in mid-February. “We love the name,” he said. But he pledged total independence of the media properties that will continue to be run by editorin-chief Jacqui Gifford and Meredith, which has a 30-year nonroyalty licensing deal. “They’ll supply the inspiration, we’ll supply the fulfillment,” said Brown.