Times are tough — and "poisonous" – at The New York Times as another round of buyouts looms for a demoralized and uneasy staff, Vanity Fair reported.
In the sixth round of buyouts since 2008 – and the second in almost as many months – the offer will go out primarily to editors. If not enough apply, the Times will turn to layoffs, Vanity Fair reported.
The move is part of the paper's bigger shift toward restructuring editorial and journalistic protocols, the magazine noted.
"The mood at the paper is poisonous in a way I've never seen it in the past 15 years," one editor told the outlet. "Every buyout is tense, but there's something really demoralizing about this one that's been worse than any before."
The restructuring aims to streamline the copy editing desk to accommodate the digital age, the paper announced in May.
"In the old model, each story got two-and-a-half edits; in the new model, each story gets one-and-a-half edits, with more emphasis on a story's digital presentation as opposed to its placement in the print edition," one staffer told Vanity Fair.
The Times's digital subscriptions are on the rise, netting an all-time record of 308,000 new digital-only subscriptions in the most recent quarter, and a 19 percent gain in digital ad revenue in May. It is still not enough to offset the loss in print advertising, the magazine reported.
The Times building in Manhattan itself is also changing, shrinking from 20 floors to just 12 floors, leaving only the highest-ranking editors with private offices, the magazine reported; the move aims to "free up valuable leasing space that could help offset a dramatic print-advertising fallout that's been plaguing the Times for the past 10 years," the magazine reported.
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