For today’s lead item, I turn it over to Poynter media business reporter Angela Fu.

Layoffs hit the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine and National Geographic 

Tuesday was a bleak day for the media industry as the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine and National Geographic all conducted layoffs, while journalists at several Condé Nast publications struck over proposed job cuts.

The Los Angeles Times shed more than 20% of its newsroom, or 115 people, as its billionaire owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, searches for a new direction following years of $30 to $40 million losses, Times senior entertainment writer Meg James reported. Tuesday’s cuts follow the departures of three top editors — including executive editor Kevin Merida — and two rounds of layoffs last year that eliminated more than 80 positions.  

Among the Times desks hit hardest by the Tuesday layoffs were its Washington bureau; business; sports; breaking news; De Los, a project focused on “all things Latinidad”; “meme team” 404; video; and photography.

Of the 115 layoffs, 94 involved union members. Soon-Shiong told the Times that he was disappointed the union had organized a one-day strike last Friday instead of working with the company to create a plan to mitigate the layoffs. The Times had wanted to loosen seniority protections in the union’s contract that require the company to lay off newer employees first. The union rejected the plan, accusing the Times of trying to pit young journalists of color against senior employees.

In a statement Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times Guild credited its Friday strike — which saw 90% of union members participate — with saving jobs. (The union had been told last week to expect a much higher number of layoffs.) 

Despite the reprieve, many younger journalists of color were laid off. The union estimates that its Latino Caucus will lose 38% of its members; its Black Caucus will lose 33% of its members; and the Asian American and Pacific Islander and Middle East, North Africa and South Asia caucuses will lose 34% of their combined membership. Those losses could have been avoided if the company had agreed to offer buyouts instead, the union said. 

“Journalists depend on trust — of the public, our readers, sources and community leaders. The events of the last week undermine that trust,” the union wrote in its statement. “This layoff was handled in a brutal and inhumane way. We had members locked out of communications systems before they could even read the layoff notices in their company email. Some were laid off several hours into their shifts.”

On X, Times reporters shared that they were laid off via a “webinar” that had the chat window disabled, preventing them from asking questions. One reporter said they got their notice while on a work trip for the Times.  

The union and the company still need to negotiate over the layoffs and are scheduled to meet Wednesday, the Times reported. 

National Geographic and Time magazine also held layoffs Tuesday. Neither company responded to a request for comment. A Time health and science reporter shared on X that she and 12 other journalists had lost their jobs, and the union for Time’s editorial staff announced that the layoffs included 15% of its members. 

In a memo to staff, Time CEO Jess Sibley wrote that the company had cut positions in editorial, tech, sales and its audiovisual studio to make the magazine more profitable, Semafor’s Maxwell Tani reported.

“We must continue increasing our revenue while managing operating costs efficiently. Over the last 12 months we have diligently reduced our expenses. There is still more work to be done,” Sibley wrote. “While we have seen positive signs of growth at TIME over the last year, our industry remains challenged and unpredictable overall.”

The past year has seen dozens of media outlets lay off workers due to inflation and revenue declines driven by an advertising market downturn. In the past week alone, Pitchfork, Sports Illustrated and the Baltimore Banner have laid off staff. 

Condé Nast is currently negotiating layoffs with one of its unions. The company announced in November that it planned to cut 5% of its workforce, or roughly 270 people. Negotiations with the Condé Union — which represents journalists at Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ and several other brands — broke down when the company rescinded its severance offer and put forth a lesser package. 

On Tuesday, over 400 of the union’s more than 500 members held a one-day strike in protest of the company’s ”bad faith bargaining.” Workers picketed outside Condé Nast’s New York headquarters, and actress Anne Hathaway walked out of a Vanity Fair photoshoot upon learning of the strike, Variety reported. At stake are 94 layoffs. 

My thanks to Angela for our lead item today. Now onto the rest of the newsletter …

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More Los Angeles Times thoughts

Layoff news in the media business is always grim, but Tuesday’s news out of the Los Angeles Times seemed particularly heartbreaking as journalists announced their own layoffs on X.

De Los reporter Chelsea Hylton tweeted, “As I’m writing this message I have tears coming down my face. Today I received a lay off notice from @latimes. It was a childhood dream of mine to be a reporter for this paper and at least I can say I did it! Thank you to everyone who helped me get here. This isn’t the end.”

Books editor Boris Kachka tweeted, “I have had the most amazing four years at the LA Times. My colleagues are smart, tireless, selfless — a real team. It looks like that time has come to an end. I wish all of them the best as I look for a new landing place.”

Opinion columnist Jean Guerrero tweeted, “I’ve been laid off from my job as a columnist for the LA Times today, with 100 of my best colleagues. It’s a dark day. I was the only Latina columnist for the opinion desk.”

Assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief Kimbriell Kelly tweeted, “I was laid off today. Winning a Pulitzer was one honor of my life. Another, leading the Washington Bureau as its first person of color and only second woman.” (Kelly was part of a team that won a Pulitzer for national reporting at The Washington Post in 2016.)

Baseball writer Sarah Valenzuela tweeted, “In ‘22, the LA Times took a chance on this lil mama from Queens to live out a dream of being a baseball beat writer. Today, I was informed I’m being laid off. What a privilege it was to cover the Angels. What a privilege it was to work for The Times. Thank you all for everything.”

Reporter Jonah Valdez tweeted, “Today, I lost my dream job. I'll eventually start dreaming of other things, but for now, I'll be grieving with everyone else.”

On and on it went, each just as sad as the next.

Layoffs in the media are not uncommon these days — far from it. But reading each tweet is a reminder that there are real people behind the layoff numbers.

Remembering a legend

Charles Osgood, who anchored “CBS Sunday Morning” for 22 years and was host of the long-running radio program “The Osgood File,” died Tuesday at his home in New Jersey. He was 91. The cause of death was dementia, according to his family.

The Associated Press’ Mark Kennedy wrote, “Osgood was a broadcaster who could write essays and light verse as well as report hard news, and he worked radio and television with equal facility. He often signed off by telling listeners: ‘I’ll see you on the radio.’”

Osgood spent 45 years at CBS News and took over “CBS Sunday Morning” when Charles Kuralt retired in 1994. Kennedy wrote, “Osgood seemingly had an impossible act to follow, but with his folksy erudition and his slightly bookish, bow-tied style, he immediately clicked with viewers who continued to embrace the program as an unhurried TV magazine.”

“Sunday Morning” executive producer Rand Morrison told CBS News, “To say there's no one like Charles Osgood is an understatement. He embodied the heart and soul of ‘Sunday Morning.’ His signature bow tie, his poetry … just his presence was special for the audience, and for those of us who worked with him. At the piano, Charlie put our lives to music. Truly, he was one of a kind — in every sense.”

Jane Pauley, who succeeded Osgood as host of “Sunday Morning” in 2016, told CBS News, “Watching him at work was a masterclass in communicating. I'll still think to myself, ‘How would Charlie say it?’, trying to capture the illusive warmth and intelligence of his voice and delivery. I expect I'll go on trying. He was one of the best broadcast stylists and one of the last. His style was so natural and unaffected it communicated his authenticity. He connected with people. Watching him on TV, or listening on the radio, as I did for years, was to feel like you knew him, and he knew you. He brought a unique sensibility, curiosity and his trademark whimsy to ‘Sunday Morning,’ and it endures.”

Prior to his hosting duties on “CBS Sunday Morning,” Osgood worked on virtually every CBS News show, including the “CBS Morning News,” the “CBS Evening News” and the “CBS Sunday Night News.”

Here’s a video remembering Osgood’s career. And be sure to check out the “CBS Sunday Morning” story.

Also, you will enjoy this piece that my colleague, Roy Peter Clark, wrote back in 2016 when Osgood retired: “A salute to Charles Osgood, the bard of broadcast news.”

CBS announced that this Sunday’s “CBS Sunday Morning” will honor the life and career of Osgood.

Raw Netflix

For a while now, Netflix has considered jumping into live sports programming, looking into bidding on sports such as tennis, surfing and auto racing. That strategy makes sense, considering the success that Amazon Prime and Peacock have had airing the NFL and that Apple has had with Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer. Plus, Netflix already has aired documentary-style programming featuring professional tennis, NFL quarterbacks and Formula One, among other sports.

But Netflix had yet to land a live sports deal. Until Tuesday.

It’s not exactly live “sports.” It’s professional wrestling. But it’s a massive deal. Netflix is paying the WWE (and parent company TKO Group) $5 billion over 10 years to air WWE’s weekly flagship show “Raw,” starting in January 2025. Netflix can opt out of the deal after five years or extend the deal another decade after the first 10 years.

And it could be a precursor to more live sports for the streaming network.

Last year, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos talked about sports on an earnings call, saying that documentary-style sports shows were “the part of the sports business that we bring the most value to, which is the drama of sports.” He added, “We’re not anti-sports. We’re just pro-profit. We have yet to figure out how to do it.”

WWE’s “Raw” is not totally live; the show is loosely scripted, and the WWE will continue handling the production. But it should help Netflix go a long way in learning how to do live sports. Most industry folks believe that streaming services will be major players as professional sports leagues negotiate future contracts for their broadcast rights. For example, the current NBA broadcast deals with ESPN/ABC and Turner expire after next season. Many expect that a streaming service such as Amazon Prime or Peacock could be included in showing at least some games, along with ESPN and/or some other network, such as NBC or Fox.

“Raw” currently airs on USA Network. Front Office Sports Eric Fisher notes, “USA Network is currently in more than 72 million U.S. homes. But that number is dropping, having already fallen 20% between 2018 and 2023, and it will continue to do so — likely at accelerating rates — as cord-cutting extends its attack on the traditional cable television business. Netflix, conversely, has more than 247 million global subscribers, tops of any streaming network, and that number is still growing. That large and expanding audience helps explain why there has been so much interest in Netflix’s sports aspirations, even as it previously balked at paying large-scale rights fees.”

For more, check out The Ringer’s Khal Davenport with “The Biggest Questions About WWE’s Massive Deal With Netflix.”

Speaking of Netflix, Axios’ Sara Fischer writes, “Netflix stock soars after adding more subscribers than expected.”

An AP first

Oscar nominations were announced Tuesday morning. Here’s the complete list.

On the media front, The Associated Press was nominated for an Academy Award for the first time in its 178-year history. “20 Days in Mariupol,” about a Ukrainian city under attack and the journalists who remained there after Russia’s invasion, has been nominated for best documentary. It was co-produced by the AP and PBS’s “Frontline” and filmed by Mstyslav Chernov, a Ukrainian journalist.

In a statement, AP executive editor Julie Pace said, “Despite extremely challenging and deeply personal circumstances, AP’s Mariupol team offered the world an essential window into the Russia-Ukraine war as it was beginning to unfold. That the Academy has chosen to recognize ’20 Days in Mariupol’ is a testament to the power of eyewitness journalism and the bravery of the journalists on the ground. We are incredibly proud of Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Vasilisa Stepanenko and the entire ‘20 Days in Mariupol’ team.”

The AP’s Jake Coyle has more about the film and the nomination.

Meanwhile …

Like many years, the biggest news coming out of the Academy Award nominations might have been about who wasn’t nominated as opposed to who was. Greta Gerwig, the director of the critically acclaimed and box office smash “Barbie,” was snubbed, as was the actress who played Barbie, Margot Robbie, even though the movie was nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

And in an ironic twist that we absolutely did not need, do you know who was nominated for the film that celebrated feminism and the power of women? The guy who played Ken: Ryan Gosling.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg wrote, “… the optics of excluding the women most responsible for a critically acclaimed film that became the biggest blockbuster of 2023 from the directing and lead actress categories are not good.”

Gosling put out a statement saying he was honored to be nominated, “But,” he added, “there is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally-celebrated film. No recognition would be possible for anyone on the film without their talent, grit and genius. To say that I’m disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement.”

It should be noted that America Ferrera was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Barbie.”

Still, the sarcastic jokes about this practically write themselves for host Jimmy Kimmel.

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Media tidbits

• For The Daily Beast, Iris Kim with “The Academy Was Right to Snub This Dehumanizing Documentary.”
• For Vanity Fair, veteran media journalist Brian Stelter with “The Great Tune-Out of 2024.” Stelter writes, “This column is about political burnout. You’re probably feeling it. You might be feeling it so acutely that you’re tempted to stop reading this sentence. But hear me out for a few paragraphs. Because this sense of exhaustion may be the defining feature of the 2024 presidential election cycle.”
• PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson and Amy Sherman with “Does the New Hampshire primary have a future? Impressions from PolitiFact’s reporting on the ground.”
• The Kansas City Chiefs’ victory over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday averaged a whopping 50.3 million viewers on CBS, making it the most-watched NFL divisional playoff game ever.
• The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch with “Behind the scenes with the NFL on CBS: How stats and graphics get to your TV.”

Hot type

• New York Times Rome bureau chief Jason Horowitz with “An Italian Town Full of the Elderly Wants to Feel Young Again.”
• Photos from The Associated Press: “This is what it looks like as winter blasts the US into a deep freeze.”

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].