The Tampa Bay Times will be forced to cut its payroll by 20 percent by a certain deadline, with the publication’s CEO offering employees severance packages.
The 140-year-old newspaper’s approximately 100 journalists and 170 other staff members received an announcement from CEO Conan Gallaty that they have until August 16 to decide if they will take a buyout package that includes four extra weeks of severance pay, the Times staff wrote in an article announcing the cutbacks.
The severance packages max out at 12 weeks, and layoffs will follow later in August if the 20 percent goal is not met, Gallaty said.
“Some of the reductions may come from eliminating unfilled vacant positions,” the newspaper noted.
The CEO also said that the company’s top executives are taking ten percent pay cuts through the end of 2024 and that he is taking a 20 percent pay cut himself.
The announcement was made soon after the Times celebrated its one-hundred-fortieth anniversary by mailing gift cards to its staff.
“While sharing this news as we mark our one-hundred-fortieth anniversary is disappointing, we are committed to ensuring the Times can continue its dedication to robust local journalism,” Gallaty said.
“I am confident we will emerge from this challenging period as a more focused and sustainable company,” he added.
According to the nonprofit Poynter Institute, which owns the Times, the Tampa-based outlet dealt with high costs relating to purchasing and shutting down its competitor, the Tampa Tribune, in 2016.
Revenue from advertising also went downhill in the following years.
In an interview, Gallaty told the institute that print still provides most of the paper’s revenue.
In order to save money, the Times shut down its St. Petersburg facility and decided to only print on Wednesdays and Sundays back in 2020, WFLA reported.
The paper also moved out of its downtown Tampa office in February to save costs — before the major downsizing announcement.
The Tampa Bay Times news comes just a day after the far-left outlet Axios announced it would slash ten percent of its 500-person staff:
NEW: Axios is laying off 50 people across the company. CEO @JimVandeHei just sent out this note — which says the layoffs are because of “changes in the media business” pic.twitter.com/lLVemNFh0N
— Katie Robertson (@katie_robertson) August 6, 2024
Both publications rely on political articles for a significant portion of their readership, making the downsizing notable, as Election Day is in just a few months.
“It’s a curious time to lay off ten percent of your staff. Here we are about 90 days away from what will not only be a consequential presidential race, but an unprecedented one,” wrote Breitbart News’s John Nolte on Tuesday. “We’ve already had one assassination attempt and one major candidate (the sitting president) bow out of the race. Additionally, we have the Olympics, a struggling economy, and a growing war in the Middle East.”
