What a mess.

So Wednesday night the Wall Street Journal reported that Sports Illustrated was headed for mass layoffs after previous owner Meredith sold SI to a new company, which licensed the publishing rights to a group called TheMaven, run by a dude named Ross Levinsohn. A brief Googling reveals that this guy was booted from the LA Times after a newsroom revolt and has a pretty poor reputation in the industry.

It’s always a bummer to see this stuff happen at media outlets, and it feels like we write about a different place being hollowed out every other week. The Inquirer just went through another round of layoffs and buyouts while smaller newspapers in this area saw a change in ownership.

Sports Illustrated is another one of those outlets that was trying to evolve digitally in a world where magazines just aren’t what they used to be. Inevitably the business model changes; it’s just a matter of whether the new people in charge actually give a shit about journalism as much as money.

The layoff tweets started coming in last night, and I see headlines out there saying “half of the staff” was let go while the WaPo is reporting a 35-40% number. Here are some of the folks who didn’t make it:


https://twitter.com/charlottecrrll/status/1179862852968091657?s=20

https://twitter.com/andrewsharp/status/1179865029425926144?s=20

https://twitter.com/JATayler/status/1179857610473910272?s=20

So on and so forth. Apparently they’re going to hire 200 contractors (freelancers) in the coming days/months/whatever.