Despite record readership, The Atlantic is forced to lay off dozens

The Atlantic magazine laid off 68 employees, joining a growing list of media companies devastated by the economic impact of the global pandemic.

The elimination of 17 percent of its staff last Thursday came even as the 163-year-old publication broke readership records and added more than 90,000 new subscribers to its rolls since March. But that wasn’t enough to make up for dramatic losses to advertising and live-events revenue.

“I know that the pandemic is indiscriminate in its course, cutting through various industries and geographies,” Atlantic Media chairman David Bradley told employees. “But, as has been the case for decades, our media economy is especially hard hit.”

Most of the layoffs hit the team that produces live events, as well as marketing and sales. Twenty-two editorial employees were laid off, which includes the Atlantic’s entire video team of 11 and three newsroom recruiters.

Executives will take a pay cut and the Atlantic is temporarily freezing salaries company-wide. The magazine had already hit pause on hiring and its paid-fellowship program, which brings in early-career journalists.

“I’m devastated today for my brilliant, generous, kind colleagues,” Deputy Managing Editor Rachel Gutman tweeted. “They are some of the most wonderful people I know, and I cannot overstate how much I’ve learned from them.”

According to the company, the reorganization is part of an approach to focus on one of the most promising parts of its business: subscribers. The Atlantic brought back a paywall last year, and since then added 160,000 new subscribers, with a goal of reaching one million by December 2022.

But the cuts at the Atlantic underscore the strange dynamic the COVID-19 pandemic has caused in the media industry. People are consuming the news like never before, but the devastation to the broader economy means less revenue for media.

“We have never, in the 163-year history of this magazine, had an audience like we had in March,” editor-in-chief Jeffery Goldberg wrote to employees at the start of April. The publication’s website had 87 million visitors in March, an “astonishing” number that was more than double the site’s previous record.