National Geographic lays off its last staff writers: Report
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The Washington-based magazine has covered science and the natural world for 135 years.
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National Geographic magazine is said to have laid off its last staff writers, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The job cuts are part of cost-cutting measures by the magazine’s parent company, Walt Disney. According to the Post, 19 editorial employees were notified in April of the impending terminations.
Several staff writers, such as Mr Craig Welch and Ms Nina Strochlic, confirmed the news on Twitter on Wednesday.
“I’ve been so lucky. I got to work with incredible journalists and tell important, global stories,” Mr Welch, a former senior writer, said in his Twitter post. “It has been an honour.”
Ms Strochlic described her time working for the iconic yellow-framed magazine as “an epic run”.
“My colleagues and I were unbelievably lucky to be the last-ever class of staff writers – certainly the coolest job I’ll ever have, and possibly among the coolest to ever exist,” she said in her Twitter post.
Future assignments will be handled by freelancers or editors who remain on staff, the Post reported.
The magazine’s small audio department was reportedly axed too.
In addition to the job cuts, Disney announced in May that physical copies of the magazine will no longer be available on the news stands in the United States from 2024.
Some employees who were let go said the company have also started to cut back on contracts that allowed photographers to spend months in the field to capture the breathtaking shots the magazine is known for.
The latest round of layoffs was the second over the past nine months and the fourth since a series of ownership changes began in 2015.
In September 2022, Disney removed six top editors from the magazine.
In a statement to CNN following the latest move, a National Geographic spokesman said the magazine will continue to publish monthly issues.
“Staffing changes will not change our ability to do this work, but rather give us more flexibility to tell different stories and meet our audiences where they are across our many platforms,” the spokesman said. “Any insinuation that the recent changes will negatively impact the magazine, or the quality of our storytelling, is simply incorrect.”
The Washington-based magazine has covered science and the natural world for 135 years.
At its peak in the late 1980s, National Geographic had 12 million subscribers in the US alone, and millions more in the rest of the world.
The cuts at National Geographic follow similar layoffs that have shaken the media industry in recent months
These include layoffs at US broadcaster CNN in late November 2022.
Just a month after that, digital media company Buzzfeed announced that 12 per cent of its staff, or nearly 200 people, will be let go.
Most recently in 2023, Vice Media, which operates both online and broadcast platforms, filed for bankruptcy
