FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2023
(Washington, D.C.) – The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) is deeply disturbed to learn that the Los Angeles Times is eliminating more than six dozen newsroom positions, a decision that will disproportionately impact Latino journalists in a richly diverse city that is nearly 50% Latino.
Latino and Asian staff members, in particular, are overrepresented among those who were notified yesterday that they will be laid off. Latinos represent 26% of the 74 positions slated to be cut, and Asian Americans represent 15%. Figures released last year showed that Latinos comprised 15% of the Times newsroom.
The Los Angeles Times Guild, which represents more than 450 employees, noted that 57 of the 74 newsroom positions being eliminated are filled by guild members. While Latinos represent 21% percent of the guild journalists, they represent 25% of the guild positions eliminated. Equally disturbing, Asian American journalists comprise 14% of the guild journalists, but 19% of those impacted by the cuts.
This comes despite a pledge that Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong made in 2020 to strengthen hiring procedures with the aim of creating a newsroom where Latinos represent 25% of the staff by 2025. Soon-Shiong’s promises were made in response to the Latino Caucus’ calls for the Times to increase its hiring and focus on Latino stories at that time.
“Our staff makeup and coverage should better reflect the fact that one in two people in LA County is Latino. This should go without saying,” Soon-Shiong wrote in a 2020 letter to the Latino Caucus and Times staff, pledging to work to diversify the newsroom. The decision to eliminate positions on key desks across the newsroom, such as photography, copy editing, and the homepage, will directly impact the newspaper’s ability to cover the diverse communities it serves.
For example, three photojournalists of color were eliminated, including two Latinx photographers and the only two Spanish-speaking photographers on staff. This decision will hamper the Times’s ability to properly reach and cover Spanish-speaking communities in the greater Los Angeles region.
The newspaper also laid off three people from its Los Angeles Times en Español online news platform, which serves Spanish-language readers in a metro region that has one of the largest Spanish-speaking populations in the country.
“The sad history of the L.A. Times is one in which promises have been made again and again to increase diversity, only for those plans to be shelved after a few short years. That can’t happen again,” said Paloma Esquivel, an L.A. Times Guild Caucus member and former co-chair. “The company must reconsider and find a different path. There’s still time to do so.”
The Times recently launched a new Latino initiative to expand its coverage of Latino culture and identity. NAHJ recognizes that initiatives such as this are a step in the right direction to provide more robust coverage, but they must be backed by real action and newsroom representation. In a region as diverse as Southern California, which faces a multitude of challenges — from economic and health inequities to pollution and climate change-fueled disasters — the stakes are high.
If the L.A. Times plans to achieve its goal of having a staff that’s 25% Hispanic by 2025, these cutbacks will hamper that effort. We ask that Times management clarify whether they intend to follow through on achieving the 2025 goal and to outline how they plan to do that moving forward.
“Tough times require tough decisions, but newsroom diversity should not be a casualty, even during cutbacks,” said NAHJ President Yvette Cabrera. “We stand in solidarity with all those who were targeted during these layoffs, and we call on the L.A. Times to stand behind their commitment to raise the newspaper’s standards of diversity and better reflect the communities it serves.”
To these journalists, NAHJ would like to extend an invitation to submit their resumes to our Career Center, where employers can access them before, during and after our upcoming convention. Additionally, we offer complimentary hardship memberships and membership extensions at no cost to journalists who have been financially impacted by layoffs so that they may access the job bank. They can apply here.
The NAHJ has requested a meeting with L.A. Times leadership to discuss why Hispanic journalists are being disproportionately laid off, what their plans are to cover Spanish-speaking communities after these layoffs, and how they plan to meet their 25 by 25 goal given the deep cuts they’ve made.
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About NAHJ:
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) is the largest organization of Latino journalists in the United States and is dedicated to the recognition and professional advancement of Hispanics in the news industry. Established in April 1984, NAHJ created a national voice and unified vision for all Hispanic journalists. The mission of NAHJ is to increase the number of Latinos in the newsrooms and to work toward fair and accurate representation of Latinos in news media. NAHJ has more than 3,500 members, including working journalists, journalism students, other media-related professionals and journalism educators. For more information please visit NAHJ.org or follow on Twitter @NAHJ.
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