The Present Age

The Present Age

Hold On To Your Butts, News Media Industry

Prepare for "a dark winter."

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Parker Molloy
Dec 07, 2022
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Hello, and welcome to The Present Age. I’m your host Parker Molloy. Before we get into the subject of today’s newsletter, let’s enjoy a little mood music: Johnny Cash’s fantastic cover of Bonnie “Prince” Billy/Will Oldham’s gorgeous “I See A Darkness”:


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You’ve probably seen a bunch of headlines that paint a dire picture of what the future holds for the world of news media.

Like this, for instance:

The Washington Post: “CNN makes massive staff cuts as news industry prepares for a dark winter”

Or… any of these:

Vanity Fair: “Layoffs and Hiring Freezes: Media Industry Ends 2022 with Bad News for Journalists”
Axios: “Media layoffs spike amid recession fears”
The New York Times: “Gannett Starts Another Round of Staff Cuts”

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Unfortunately, they’re all accurate. There’s an industry-wide belt-tightening happening right now.

  • CNN - “a couple hundred” staffers lost their jobs

  • Gannett - “roughly 200” employees were laid off, just months after hundreds of others were laid off.

  • The Washington Post - just announced the end of its Sunday magazine, laying off the 10 staffers who ran it.

  • Protocol - shut down last month, laying off its entire staff.

  • Vice - has been laying off employees in small-ish chunks spread out over many months, which has helped spare them bad headlines.

  • ABC News - seems like they’ll be making some layoffs early in 2023.

  • NBC News/MSNBC - seems like they’ll be making layoffs early next year, as well.

There’s one example, however, that made me feel like my head was going to explode.

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