from Great Game India:
The Daily Beast is dismantling its senior editorial team following voluntary buyouts last month. Senior staff members like Justin Baragona, Jose Pagliery, and Pilar Melendez are exiting, resulting in 70% of unionized employees leaving.
Following voluntary buyouts last month, which resulted in the departure of over 70% of unionized employees, The Daily Beast is dismantling its senior editorial team, as TheWrap has learned.
According to someone with knowledge of the issue, senior staff members taking buyouts include media reporter Justin Baragona, political investigations reporter Jose Pagliery, senior national reporter Pilar Melendez, senior reporter Emily Shugerman, and more. Nearly 70% of the guild, or twenty-five unionized employees, including nearly all of the outlet’s top staff members, accepted the buyout offers.
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Furthermore, editorial staff members who are not members of a union anticipate more layoffs by the end of the month.
The person told TheWrap, “We’re watching the collapse of The Beast right now.” “The site won’t be able to recover from this, without a doubt.”
“One of the first things any business should learn is to avoid alienating its core customers to the point where they start calling for a boycott of your business,” the speaker went on.
After a change in leadership, the Daily Beast Union stated at the end of May that staff members would be buying out voluntarily through negotiation. The goal of the buyout applications was to reduce the amount by $1.5 million, and as the outlet is completely rebuilt, more decreases are anticipated.
“With such a generous severance offer, we anticipated a large number of employees would take the voluntary buyout. We are not at all surprised,” a Daily Beast spokesperson said in a statement to TheWrap. “These numbers allow us to move forward with our plan to secure the financial future of the Beast and rebuild a newsroom that will thrive in the current landscape. It’s always difficult when dedicated employees choose to step away. We thank them and wish them the best in their future endeavors.”
There is now a seven-day period for union members to accept the buyout or withdraw their application, which may affect how many employees leave the shop.
There are 37 members of the Daily Beast Union. Apart from the buyouts, the union and management have worked out a tentative two-year collective bargaining deal that will be advantageous to all members, buyout or not. The union obtained retroactive pay increases for all members starting on January 1st through the agreement.
A minority share in the news website was awarded to former ABC executive Ben Sherwood and former Hearst executive Joanna Coles in April. Sherwood will serve as CEO and Coles as chief content and creative officer.
Barry Diller, the proprietor of The Daily Beast, has lost tens of millions of dollars since the site’s founding in 2013.
“We have been in the driver’s seat of this process since Sherwood and Coles arrived at the Beast,” the union writes in a statement. “We have battled with Company lawyers, demanded information in the face of uncertainty, and have won the fight for our colleagues to design their own futures.”
“Managers come and go, but we, the Daily Beast Union, are here to stay,” the statement continued.
Last year, GreatGameIndia reported that George Soros plans to buy bankrupt Vice Media at a valuation of around $400 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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