New York Daily News team tweets meme after Tronc announces layoffs

Layoffs are difficult for PR pros to handle, but social media can make it harder (especially if you forget to change the passwords).

On Monday, Tronc laid off roughly half of the New York Daily News staff, including its social media team, editor-in-chief Jim Rich and managing editor Kristen Lee.

Tronc announced the layoffs through a memo to employees:

To capture the opportunities ahead and address the significant financial challenges we have faced for years, we are fundamentally restructuring the Daily News. We are reducing today the size of the editorial team by approximately 50 percent and re-focusing much of our talent on breaking news—especially in the areas of crime, civil justice and public responsibility.

…With our established digital prowess, the Daily News is in a solid position to lead tronc’s transformation and become the newsroom of the future. But realizing that potential requires committing to our digital audience and focusing our resources on the content and approaches that our readers find most relevant.

[FREE VIDEO PRESENTATION : Inside Northwestern Mutual's culture-reviving online town hallevent]

The New York Times reported:

… The layoffs were not unexpected. The blog Study Hall reported on Thursday that a large percentage of the staff was to be laid off and that Mr. Rich would not be returning to the newsroom after a vacation. Some News employees started packing last week.

Fast Company reported:

It’s just the latest round of cuts at the financially struggling Daily News, which Tronc bought last summer for $1, promptly terminating some roles at the paper and moving some functions to the publisher’s Chicago headquarters.

It’s been a long, slow decline for the paper, which once boasted 2.4 million daily readers, with enough scandals worthy of a big-city tabloid. In both the 1980s and 1990s, it almost went out of business before being rescued by British millionaire Robert Maxwell, who, months later, drowned when he fell off his yacht, plunging the paper into bankruptcy. From there, it was resuscitated once again by real-estate mogul Mort Zuckerman in 1993.

Though the cuts were expected to happen, many bemoaned the announcement and worried about the future of the publication.

NPR reported:

The move now to gut the Daily News's newsroom will be a blow to local watchdog journalism in the nation's largest city. It has retained a punch in local news at a time when the The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have retreated from metro coverage.

The Daily News won a Pulitzer Prize last year, its 11th, with ProPublica, for its exposure of how the New York Police Department used an obscure civil enforcement law to evict hundreds of poor people from their homes without their being able to challenge the move first. The paper has also made a meal of the Donald Trump presidency from the populist left, depicting the New York-based real estate developer, long familiar to readers of its gossip pages, as a malevolent, autocratic and cartoonish figure.

Some former employees also tweeted about their sadness over the news. Rich didn’t hold back blows when he tweeted the following:

If you hate democracy and think local governments should operate unchecked and in the dark, then today is a good day for you.

— Jim Rich (@therealjimrich) July 23, 2018

Rich’s Twitter profile also currently reads:

Just a guy sitting at home watching journalism being choked into extinction.

Besides former employees using their personal Twitter accounts to express their opinions about the layoffs, one employee embraced the publication’s brash style and tweeted the following GIF (since deleted) from the publication’s Twitter account:

Not only does the tweet have far more engagement than any other tweet on the publication’s Twitter feed, the conversation thread has been lively. Here’s a small sampling:

100% posted by someone fired

— nybig4 (@nybig4) July 23, 2018

Will the last journalist out please turn off the journalism?

— William K. Wolfrum (@Wolfrum) July 23, 2018

really puts this tweet in perspective https://t.co/5hH1chxl0E

— Fernando Alfonso III (@fernalfonso) July 23, 2018

Tronc’s move to lay off New York Daily News’ staff is another tough communications moment in a recent string of them for the media company:

Variety reported:

It’s been a year of upheaval for Tronc, the Chicago-based publishing business of the company formerly known as Tribune Co. Earlier this year, Tronc sold the Los Angeles Times, along with the San Diego Union-Tribune and other titles in Southern California to investor and biotech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong for $500 million and the assumption of $90 million pension liabilities.

In March, Michael Ferro, the former Tronc chairman, stepped down from the company’s board just prior to a report from Fortune detailing allegations of sexual advances by two women who were doing business with him.

However, the incident underlines a simple, but important, lesson: If you’re going to lay off your social media team, change the passwords of your social media accounts.

from PR Daily News Feed https://ift.tt/2LtOpZL