The LA Times and Its Layoffs Mess; It’s Time to Check Your Robitussin–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Jan. 25, 2024

Indy Digest: Jan. 25, 2024

There’s an axiom, of sorts, in the journalism world that newspapers are great at external communications, since that’s what they do—but, for some baffling reason, they’re terrible at internal communications.

Boy, oh boy, is the Los Angeles Times proving that axiom this week.

If you haven’t heard what’s happening there, it’s bad—and it’s going to seriously degrade the overall level of news throughout Southern California. According to, well, the Los Angeles Times:

The Los Angeles Times announced Tuesday that it was laying off at least 115 people — or more than 20% of the newsroom — in one of the largest workforce reductions in the history of the 142-year-old institution.

The move comes amid projections for another year of heavy losses for the newspaper.

The cuts were necessary because the paper could no longer lose $30 million to $40 million a year without making progress toward building higher readership that would bring in advertising and subscriptions to sustain the organization, said the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.

Drastic changes were needed, he said, including installing new leaders who would focus on strengthening the outlet’s journalism to become indispensable to more readers.

I don’t understand how cutting almost a quarter of the newsroom can possibly make the outlet’s journalism more indispensable to readers—especially when, as NBC News points out, journalists of color were disproportionately hit by the layoffs—but that’s a topic for another day..

As for that aforementioned internal communication: Not only are these layoffs bad; the way the newspaper has handled them has been terrible. First off: The layoffs were apparently announced in a webinar. According to Los Angeles Magazine: “One staffer compared the webinar that announced the layoffs to ‘a drive-by’ on social media, as the newsroom was plunged into chaos as a rudderless ship with little editorial direction. Columnists, reporters, and editors lost their jobs. ‘The L.A. Times laid us off in an HR zoom webinar with chat disabled, no q&a, no chance to ask questions,’ Jared Servantez, a now former editor, wrote.”

Second: The newspaper either decided last night to add five more people to the layoff list, or messed something up as the layoff process unfolded. As Ryan Fonseca, one of the writers of the newspaper’s wonderful Essential California newsletter, tweeted today: “I’d been told I was safe, but turns out LA Times management screwed up their own layoff process and decided to send more notices. Got a call from HR last night that I’m being let go.”

Wow.

This has been one of the worst weeks I’ve ever seen for journalism layoffs. In addition to the 115-120 layoffs at the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated gave almost its entire staff layoff notices on Friday; Time magazine laid off 30 people, or 15 percent of its unionized newsroom employees; Pitchfork is losing half of its staff as it is folded into GQ; National Geographic laid off an unspecified number of people; and Business Insider today said it was laying off 8 percent of its staff.

(And this is just news media layoffs. Google “layoffs,” and news stories come up regarding layoffs at Microsoft, REI and Paramount … today alone.)

Who know what news tomorrow will bring? We’ll soon find out—whether we like it or not.

—Jimmy Boegle

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More News

• If you’re in Desert Hot Springs, and you get a knock on your door, here’s something you should know. From a news release: “The Desert Hot Springs Police Department has been made aware of allegations that subjects in a uniform and posing as police and fire department officials have been soliciting donations door to door in residential neighborhoods. … This community advisory is to notify the residents of Desert Hot Springs that no police or fire officials are seeking donations door to door. If you are contacted by such solicitors, please call … 760-329-2904.”

• Sam Diego continues to recover after major flooding on Monday … and more rain could be on the way. (Some of that rain, of course, will come here, too.) Voice of San Diego reports: “Forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center in Maryland say something big is brewing in the Pacific. They say that most of California and much of the West have a greater than 70 percent chance of above-normal rainfall as January winds down and February begins. … Early forecasts from the CPC show the risk of heavy rain increases for coastal regions of Northern California beginning Jan. 30, with the chances spreading southward along the coast the next day. Heavy snow is possible in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada. Then comes a high risk (greater than 60 percent chance) of hazardous, heavy precipitation from Feb. 1 to 4 across California, Arizona and western New Mexico. … Monday was the (San Diego’s) wettest January day ever, with records stretching back to 1850. It was the city’s fourth wettest day, any time of the year.”

• Regarding today’s recall news … it’s time to check your Robitussin! NBC News says: “Haleon has issued a voluntary recall of two Robitussin cough medicines due to microbial contamination. Robitussin Honey CF Max Day Adult and Robitussin Honey CF Max Nighttime Adult are the cough syrups being recalled, the company said Wednesday. The company said it so far hasn’t received any reports of ‘adverse events’ related to the recall. The company warned that the use of the affected product could potentially result in severe or life-threatening adverse events such as fungemia, meaning the presence of fungi or yeasts in the blood, or disseminated fungal infection in immunocompromised individuals. However, in non-immunocompromised consumers, life-threatening infections are not likely to occur.” Here’s the recall notice with the recalled lot numbers.

• Next up on the recall list: Ford Explorers. CBS News Moneywatch reports: “Ford is recalling nearly 1.9 million Ford Explorer SUVs in the U.S. because of loose clips that could detach, allowing the windshield trim panels to fly off while the vehicle is traveling at highway speeds. The recall covers Explorers from the 2011 through 2019 model years. The recall concerns A-pillar retention clips that hold the trim that covers the vehicle’s roof supports by the windshield. ‘The A-pillar trim retention clips may not be properly engaged, allowing the trim to detach,’ Ford Motors stated in a notification it sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) acknowledging the recall. Flying parts could increase the risk of a crash, the agency said, both for the vehicle’s driver and others on the road.”

• The state is pondering whether to extend a pandemic-era law allowing Zoom to be used for some court cases. Our partners at CalMatters say: “Since the pandemic, Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg has joined hundreds of thousands of California’s lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses and “Zoomed” in remotely to court hearings. For Umberg, a practicing attorney and former federal prosecutor from Santa Ana, using remote video to help chip away at California’s backlogged court system has been undeniably beneficial for everyday Californians who have to go to court for one reason or another. … Umberg wants to make remote court hearings permanent, so it’s been frustrating for him to see the issue turn into a tedious annual fight in the California Legislature, despite video hearings being wildly popular. Ninety-six percent of the people who’ve taken a survey after one of the more than 3.5 million remote court hearings since 2022 said they had a positive experience, according to the Judicial Council of California, of which Umberg is a member. Yet rather than adopt a permanent law authorizing remote video in court, each year since 2021, lawmakers have temporarily extended the pandemic-era video program for another year or two. The latest extension is Umberg’s Senate Bill 92, which would allow criminal court proceedings to continue to be held via video for another year.”

• The feds are working to fix a really, really big mistake regarding college financial aid. NPR explains: “Families have a lot of questions right now about how much help they’ll get paying for college—questions that financial aid offices can’t yet answer. That’s because this year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is months behind schedule. And to make things really complicated, it includes a mistake that would have cost students $1.8 billion in federal student aid. … In practice, this mistake would make some students and families appear to have more income than they really do, and that means they would get less aid than they should. And not just federal financial aid but also all sorts of state and school-based aid. … On Tuesday, a department spokesperson confirmed to NPR that the department will fix this mistake in time for the 2024-2025 award year, though the spokesperson could not provide details on how or how quickly the fix will be made. For the first time, the department also gave a sense of just how much federal student aid is at stake: $1.8 billion.“

• And finally … a reader writes: “Regarding your article on (Buffalo Bills placekicker) Tyler Bass receiving death threats, you may want to also mention people in Buffalo have donated $110,000 in $22.00 increments to his favorite charity. The death threat thing was a very small percentage of this fan base and though widely covered does not reflect the generosity of Buffalo Bills fans that has been proven time and time again.” Actually, that number—dedicated to the Ten Lives Club, a charity that saves cats from euthanasia—is now more than $270,000, according to Buffalo’s WPTV. Thanks for pointing this out, Ann!