It’s been a sad and scary and long week. I wrote about the slew of layoffs this month alone coinciding with the presidential administration’s change of power, again landing at a conclusion that might feel trite but rings more true than ever: We aren’t powerless, even if it feels that way, and building relationships with each other remains crucially important in the face of the next four years and beyond.

In this issue:

And also: Newsrooms struggle to describe Elon Musk’s actions at the inauguration, broadcast TV remains a Trump target, UC Berkeley backs out of hosting California’s Google journalism fund, and a new publication launches for accountability journalism focused on Musk. Plus, our resource of the week is the Conscious Style Guide.

—James Salanga

As a new presidential administration comes to power, more U.S. newsrooms have laid off workers so far this January than at this point in January 2024 or January 2023.

It’s grim news when we need people to contextualize the deluge of life-altering policy decisions (even from this past week alone) and worsened by the fact of the industry‘s increasing dependence on platforms like Meta and X, whose CEOs have aligned themselves with the anti-press president. 

“This is just destroying people’s morale,” said Katherine Reynolds Lewis, the founder and executive director of the Institute of Independent Journalism (IIJ). IIJ published a report and survey on the layoffs’ impact on marginalized journalists last year and has been tracking industry layoffs since 2023. 

CNN is laying off 6% of its staff, or about 210 employees. NBC News is laying off “under 50” workers. The Washington Post cut 4% of its staff, primarily its business department. HuffPost laid off more than 20% of its employees. Reckon News shut down. This American Life saw “rare” undisclosed staff reductions. Vox Media executed its third round of layoffs in the past two months. The Chicago Reader laid off six employees in hopes of avoiding total closure. Dotdash Meredith laid off 143 workers. “Less than 10 people” lost their jobs at Tech Crunch. Local tech news publisher Digital Trends laid off more than a dozen journalists. And the Chicago Sun-Times (which is part of Chicago’s NPR member station WBEZ) is now offering buyouts to avert layoffs of between 20-30 staffers. 

“There are fewer journalists who are working to cover the important policies in our country, and also the ones that are left are often working under a threat of layoffs, worried about their job security, or under-resourced because so many people have left their newsroom,” Reynolds Lewis said. 

Matt Pearce, president of the Media Guild of the West, said part of the shift is due to the increasing entanglement of social media platform moguls with the anti-press administration.  

The NewsGuild, of which Media Guild of the West is a part, passed a 2023 resolution to “stand for journalistic independence“ and “only support platform-publisher legislation that substantially ensures newsrooms spend news funds on newsroom employment.” 

“Our ability as journalists to reach the public is being controlled by these people who are actively currying favor with an administration that seems largely indifferent to press independence and press freedom and indifferent to people getting accurate information about their own lives and their community,” Pearce said. 

Nonprofit newsrooms may also face additional precarity with accurate reporting during this administration and beyond. An “anti-terror bill” making its way through Congress would allow the Secretary of the Treasury to unilaterally revoke nonprofits’ tax-exempt status if they’re deemed to be a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Similar bills have been used to target journalists in the Philippines, which saw a media shutdown in 2020 on the back of the passing of an Anti-Terrorist Bill during former president (and Trump supporter) Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. 

Independent journalism allows reporters to reach an audience that wants to hear their reporting, but it may also leave them more vulnerable to legal challenges and is also beholden to a different kind of personal commodification. Still, Lewis points out that freelancing or going independent — while accompanied by financial hurdles and complications — can be one way for reporters to do values-aligned work that doesn’t hinge on the whims of media moguls and economic change. 

“There’s a whole community of freelancers who know how to do this sustainably, and together we can build a whole ecosystem that doesn’t rely on the ups and downs of the media industry,” she said. 

Community-building will be crucial for the next four years and beyond, which movement journalists who covered the initial Trump administration have highlighted. And Pearce says ultimately, while it’s easy to feel defeated looking at layoffs and the state of the industry, change is possible through acting in coalition. 

“You have to know what your values are and be willing to stand up for them, and to organize around those principles and find alliances with people and groups that have similar values,” he said. “The people who show up make that change happen.”

—James Salanga

What would you call this?: News organizations and onlookers grappled with describing Elon Musk’s actions during the inauguration. So much so that Defector’s Deputy Editor Barry Petchesky compiled 25 examples of news organizations describing Elon Musk’s "certain stunning arm gesture" “that critics are comparing to a fascist salute”. A local weather reporter was fired after posting about the gesture being a Nazi salute.

❔ Read the story in Defector.

Broadcast TV is dying — yet it’s still a Trump target: TV remains crucially important; though it requires a television and digital tuner (and electricity), it’s still news and entertainment viewers don’t have to pay monthly costs for. And people are still tuning in, meaning local news’ TV ads are reaching people — particularly political ads. Post-election, the medium is entering a new period of uncertainty, especially as streaming continues to gain prominence.

📺 Read the story in WIRED.

UC Berkeley backs out of California’s Google journalism fund: A representative for the university’s journalism school cited concerns about how the $125 million proposed News Transformation Fund would be administered. “Our campus can’t serve as a passthrough for funds from Google and the state to local newsrooms,” said Elena Conis, acting dean of the journalism school. The state is now scrambling to fulfill its deal with Google, which would send a total $180 million to California journalism programs over five years.

🏫 Read the story in POLITICO.

“Musk Watch” launches: Lawyer and investigative journalist Judd Legum and reporter Caleb Ecarna will produce “accountability journalism focused on one of the most powerful humans in history” in the new publication with two issues a week. One issue will focus on Musk news aggregation, while another will be a more deeply reported piece about his latest dealings.

🔎 Read the publication and coverage of its launch in NPR.

This week’s resource is … the Conscious Style Guide.

The guide provides a comprehensive compilation of approaches to equity-based language so, as its writer, editor, and founder Karen Yin says, “words … can become tools instead of unwitting weapons.” There’s also a free monthly newsletter that distills similar knowledge as the book.

As misinformation proliferates today, especially from President Trump, it’s imperative for journalists to be thoughtful about how our language can be the most accurate and specific — especially when reporting on new policies and their impact. The Objective interviewed Yin about the guide in 2023, where she shared more about the concept of “conscious language”.

(Also, Yin’s family is based in the Altadena-Pasadena area and lost their home due to the Eaton Fire. You can support them here.)

Next week is another installment of Beatrice Forman’s democracy reporting column — send her your questions below!

Ask me your pro-democracy reporting questions!

For more style guides, journalism job boards, and tip sheets, check out The Objective’s resource list.

Thanks for reading. We appreciate you being here, and we’ll have more for you next week.

— 30 —