UPDATED: 4:15 p.m. 11/05
The Tampa Bay Times has reduced its newsroom staff by 16 jobs.
The October cuts, which include full and part-time employees, were confirmed to the Poynter Institute by executive editor Mark Katches, who joined the Times in August.
The Times — the country's sixth largest newspaper — is owned by the Poynter Institute.
The layoffs come less than a year after the newspaper announced that it eliminated 50 jobs company-wide due to a dip in ad revenue and new tariffs on newsprint. The tariffs also played a role in an April announcement that saw the Times' *tbt daily tabloid morph back into a weekly.
Here's Katches' statement, where he explains that the Times is hiring new staff, too:
In October, the Tampa Bay Times eliminated jobs throughout the organization, including nine full-time positions in the newsroom and seven part-time jobs. The reductions are necessary as the Times realigns its business for the future. The Times is owned by the Poynter Institute and is the sixth-largest newspaper in the country.
“Although saying goodbye to talented journalists is never easy, we're also actively hiring for mission critical jobs that will keep us moving forward,” Katches said. “We've been adding to our investigative reporting team and are planning to hire digital producers and a deputy editor overseeing digital strategy and audience engagement.”
It's never great news when you're writing about journalists losing jobs, and Katches told CL that he would not share which specific staff members the Times let go. If you hear anything, then slide into our DMs (or just email us).
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This article appears in Nov 1-8, 2018.