Media group Reach said about 450 jobs, or about a tenth of the workforce across its national and regional newspapers, would be lost due to a collapse in advertising revenue and demand.
Many of Reach Group's news products have seen revenue decline as Meta stopped supporting news. Photo: GI
Jim Mullen, CEO of Reach, said the move is also directly related to Meta's decision to cut news support on Facebook.
This year, Meta eliminated Instant Articles, a mobile-friendly format for news articles that drove traffic to news sites, as well as Facebook News, a tab on the site that displayed news articles. As a result, news organizations like Reach saw a sharp decline in digital readership.
More than 300 Reach journalists will lose their jobs in the latest round of cuts, with the remainder coming from other divisions such as commercial. The company said the job losses would help reduce operating costs by 5 to 6 percent. The group has already laid off 330 staff across its titles this year, and the latest job losses will be close to 800 by 2023.
Mullen stressed that the decision to cut jobs had nothing to do with the growing use of artificial intelligence to assist with reporting. “Robots are not taking journalists’ jobs.”
Mullen said the number of articles Reach publishes will not decrease and the editorial team will make up 57% of total staff after the latest cuts, compared with 54% in 2019.
But he added that the story will change as money is invested in formats like short-form video designed to appeal to younger audiences, led by social media influencers. “We need to have the right scale in the future. We are absolutely committed to journalism,” Mullen said.
Earlier, another major news site, Pink News, reported to staff that it had lost money every month in the first six months of 2023 due to “declining social media circulation,” rising costs and a falling dollar.
The LGBTQ+-focused publisher revealed the issues in a memo to staff, announcing redundancies this summer that forced it to lay off some staff.
Meanwhile, in Canada, Meta has suspended news support in the country because of the Online News Act, which forces tech giants to pay for news. Some experts estimate that 20% to 30% of the readers of news sites that rely heavily on Facebook have disappeared overnight.
Hoang Anh (according to FT, PG, NL)
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