Disturbing new setbacks for nation’s free press

Layoffs, pay cuts and shutdowns in the news media are accelerating across the U.S. in a disturbing new trend. The chain that includes The Orange County Register announced cutbacks; free lance foreign journalists are finding it difficult to sell their work; BuzzFeed laid off 100. (Columbia Journalism Review, February 1, 2018, by Mathew Ingram)

The Charleston Gazette-Mail of West Virginia is filing for bankruptcy prior to a sell-off a year after one of their reporters won a Pulitzer for a story on the state’s opioid crisis. (New York Times, February 2, 2018, by Niraj Chokshi)

With the deaths of their publisher and chief financial officer, the Eastern Group Publications of Los Angeles County shut down after failing to find a buyer. The company played a vital role in covering news in mostly Latina areas of rising immigrant communities. Other small newspapers in the county have recently either shut down or been forced to drastically cut staff. (Los Angeles Times, February 3, 2018, by Hailey Branson-Potts)

The Los Angeles Times finds itself in turmoil with three chief editors in less than six months, a discredited publisher on leave and a newly unionized staff on edge. (CNN, February 1, 2018, by Dylan Byers)