StartleGram less than 30 news staff, as McLatchKey's vulture capitalist Chatham swings the meataxe

 I hadn't realized that McLatchKey had done a new round of cuts company-wide at the orders of its vulture capitalist owner, Chatham Asset Management.

Dick Tofel had a piece on it, but somehow overlooked the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, aka the Startlegram, among McLatchKey papers. 

Per a wingnut vulture "newspaper" from Dallas to whom I shall not link, McClatchy laid off more than 90 unionized journalists and media workers company-wide, including Fort Worth Star-Telegram staff. The NewsGuild-CWA said the cuts represented about 30% of the McClatchy workforce it represents.

I will link to D Mag, which links to the Fort Worth union chapter's Instagram. Down to less than 30 in the newsroom, as it notes. The guild blames McLatchKey pivoting to AI.

That said, Tofel is good for snarking on the vultures, who, he notes, essentially admitted now that less is not more:

Now, McClatchy continues, “we cannot continue investing [in the sense of spending at all, rather than increasing spending] where subscriber interest does not support the investment.” In other words, it’s the readers’ fault. “We need to listen to subscribers,” they say, so they’re going to degrade the products further. The plan is to focus on “where journalism can have the greatest impact” and on what “subscribers value.”

There you are. (And, they're right; in Cowtown, they're down to less than 25K circ, maybe 20K. This year's TPA annual says the Snooze is still nearly 120K, so, it's a 5-1 circulation ratio.)

He also picks up on the union, linking to a CJR piece from early this year talking about McLatchKey and AI.

Not linked by Dick is CJR's own post-layoffs piece, which looks much more at the AI black hole, and boy, this sure looks like union-busting. That's especially because the Miami Herald, which had been taking the lead in negotiating at least minimal protections on AI and staff, got hit the hardest.

No, scratch that. 

By percentage, the Idaho Statesman, which lost 13 of 22, got crushed. That's Boise's paper, in case you wondered. How the hell do you run a paper in a city and metro that big with nine staff?