Staffers at the New York Times Co (NYSE:NYT) held a peaceful protest in the streets of New York on Thursday, in which they took to the streets to express their concerns over job cuts and changes in the operational structure.
The New York Times staffers decided to protest in order to express their displeasure in the operational structure. Prior to the protests, they had sent two letters to the top management to express their grievances. Copy editors wrote and sent an open letter executive editor Dean Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn on Wednesday. The letter sought to challenge the company’s decision to slash jobs as well as eliminating the copy desk. The latter is considered important for various reasons including identifying and eliminating grammatical errors and also making sure that articles stick to the guidelines.
“We have begun the humiliating process of justifying our continued presence at The New York Times,” stated the copy editors in the letter.
Reporters add more pressure on management
Reporters from the company also sent a letter to the same executives, urging them to save reporters from errors. They also told the management that eliminating the copy desks and slashing dozens of editing jobs would be unwise because it would ruin the quality of their product.
The company’s employees took to the streets of New York shortly after 3 p.m on Thursday outside the New York Times headquarters. Their protest lasted about 20 minutes, during which they chanted and held up signs expressing some of the issues that they were against.
Jim Rutenberg, a media columnist at the New York Times stated that job cuts were inevitable though those related to the copy desk were quite a big deal. He also pointed out that the media is currently under a lot of pressure especially about being accurate. It is thus important to the employees that the copy desks remain operational. The New York Times is the firm with the highest reports of fake news and this is one of the major problems affecting the company.
New York Times closed the latest trading session on Thursday at $17.80.
