NPR offers newsroom buyouts; layoffs could follow – NPR

Media

NPR trims jobs in newsroom overhaul as it confronts era without public funding

May 18, 20262:02 PM ET, Heard on All Things Considered

By David Folkenflik, 4-Minute Listen

Transcript

Bloomberg via Getty Images/Bloomberg

NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher says the network has a gap of $8 million in its annual budget due to softening corporate sponsorship and the end of federal subsidies for public media stations.

NPR is restructuring its newsroom, including cutting some reporting and editing jobs, as it attempts to keep pace with changing audience habits while adjusting to an era without federal subsidies.

NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher says the network has to fill a gap of $8 million in its $300-million annual budget because of the elimination of federal subsidies for its member stations, which pay NPR to air programs such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered. In a memo to staff, she said the network expects to earn $15 million less in station fees this year and is anticipating a drop in corporate sponsorship revenue.

The network is offering buyouts to approximately 300 employees, mostly within news gathering desks in the newsroom. Staff of NPR’s news programs, including hosts, are not eligible. 

The actual number of departing journalists will be far smaller, NPR officials say. They say they will accept up to 30 buyouts but more targeted layoffs would ensue if an insufficient number of employees take voluntary buyouts by next Tuesday, May 26.

Paradoxically, just prior to the announcement of these cost-cutting measures, NPR received a pair of private gifts totaling $113 million — representing the network’s second- and third-largest in its 56-year history. Most of that money, however, is dedicated to technological innovation.

Maher also acknowledges a mighty wave of individual contributions following Congress’ vote last summer to take back all $1.1 billion it already had committed to public media. Those donations have helped sustain the network and the member stations, though many have announced their own layoffs over the past year.

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“The extraordinary generosity of donors across the nation has really mitigated some of the hardest impacts of the loss of federal funding,” Maher says. “I am relieved that that is the case. And now it is our responsibility to ensure that we take that gift that they have given us and use this time to get to a place where we are sustainable for the future.”

A changing media environment 

The network plans to overhaul its app and reshape its user experience across platforms to enrich the experience for listeners, readers and even viewers of its digital and streamlining products. And NPR’s senior corporate leaders — some of whom have deep roots in the world of tech — are pivoting from the mantra of “reaching people wherever they are” to encouraging people to use NPR on its own platforms.

“We have to change this organization. We have to think about this audience. We have to think about how they are consuming us. We have to think about the member stations,” says NPR Editor-in-Chief Thomas Evans. “We have to keep what I consider to be the last truly independent newsroom in the country healthy and alive and vibrant.”

The way major tech companies, especially Google, have integrated AI into search engines and apps means people are presented with AI-synthesized information before individual search results. This has led to a sharp drop in referrals to NPR’s website; in some cases they have all but vanished.

Some are calling this “Google Zero” or the “Dead Web.” Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch recently said on the TBPN podcast that he told colleagues to plan as if Google searches yield no referrals at all to the company’s publications, which include The New Yorker. 

Currently, NPR has 425 newsroom employees, Evans says. Seven vacancies will be kept open.

Pat O’Donnell, executive director of the SAG-AFTRA Washington-Mid Atlantic Local, which represents hundreds of NPR journalists, commends the network’s approach to making job cuts.

“It’s not that many,” she says. “The fact they were willing to [agree to] more buyouts, and will make fewer cuts for each buyout, means they needed to cut the budget, but were doing it fairly.”

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Such job reductions represent a familiar tactic for media outlets in financially challenging times. Earlier this year, for example, the Washington Post laid off hundreds of journalists. CBS shed more than 60 newsroom staffers. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution eliminated the jobs of 15% of its staff. The Associated Press recently laid off or bought out roughly 60 journalists.

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