Two days after executives at NOLA Media Group, publisher of NOLA.com and The Times-Picayune, announced the company would be merging with the Alabama Media Group to form a new “Southeast Regional Media Group,” reporters in New Orleans are reportedly being informed of impending layoffs, Gambit reports.
“They’re being pretty upfront about the fact there will be layoffs,” one NOLA Media Group newsroom staffer tells Gambit, a free New Orleans-based alternative weekly publication, which quotes the staffer anonymously. Another joked grimly that it may be “2012 redux,” referring to the firings of some 200 Times-Picayune employees in 2012.
Managers at the media company’s offices in One Canal Place have been meeting with reporters in recent to announce the newsroom will shrink, several people tell Gambit. NOLA Media Group Director of State and Metro Content Mark Lorando reportedly described layoffs as “deep” to one employee.
The restructuring is scheduled to take place in the latter half of 2015 and be complete by early 2016, according to sources with knowledge of the plan.
Unlike the last major round of cuts, the sources says, sports, arts and feature reporters also are at risk in this round of cuts; in 2012, many of the firings came on the news side. What’s unclear is whether duplicate positions in New Orleans and Alabama, like copy editors, would be combined in the new Southeast Regional Media Group.
Also unclear when it comes to firings: how much weight will be placed on each writer’s “clicks”—the number of times online readers click on a story—which are closely tracked within NOLA Media Group.
Last October, the company announced The Times-Picayune‘s printing operations would move to Mobile, Alabama, in “late 2015 or early 2016,” resulting in the loss of 100 jobs in New Orleans and the likely shuttering of the old Times-Picayune building on Howard Avenue.
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