About a third of large US newspapers have suffered layoffs since 2017

Newspaper layoffs have far from abated in the past year, and digital-native news outlets are also suffering losses.  At least 36 percent of the largest newspapers across the United States – as well as at least 23 percent of the highest-traffic digital-native news outlets – experienced layoffs between January 2017 and April 2018, according to the Pew study. Among newspapers, those with the highest circulation were most likely to be affected. The analysis comes amid a series of highly publicized staff reductions by hedge fund companies that had acquired well-known newspapers, including The Denver Post, where employees publicly criticized the cuts made by the papers’ owners. Of the 110 daily newspapers in the analysis, 40 – or 36 perceny – were found to have gone through publicly reported layoffs during the 16-month study period, with at least 12 experiencing more than one round of layoffs. It is possible that even more occurred but remained under the radar of the search methods employed in this analysis.