Hedge Fund Owner Guts Newsrooms as 90 McClatchy Journalists Lose Jobs in Nationwide Purge

Sweeping Cuts Eliminate Entire Departments Across 17 Publications

Hedge fund-owned newspaper publisher McClatchy laid off more than 90 unionized journalists and media workers across 17 publications this week, representing approximately 30 percent of all McClatchy workers unionized with The NewsGuild-CWA. The cuts devastated newsrooms from coast to coast, eliminating entire departments and leaving communities across eight states with sharply reduced local coverage. California newsrooms bore the brunt of the reductions, with at least 20 journalists losing their jobs at the company’s three Golden State newspapers.

The layoffs hit The Sacramento Bee particularly hard, eliminating all three members of the newspaper’s sports department in a city that currently hosts two professional sports teams. McClatchy terminated Sacramento Kings beat reporter Jason Anderson, San Francisco 49ers beat reporter Chris Biderman, and high school sports reporter Joe Davidson. The newspaper had also covered the Athletics, who played in Sacramento ahead of their move to Las Vegas in 2028.

The Sacramento Bee lost at least 10 journalists overall in the cuts, according to Poynter, which cited estimates from unions representing the company’s journalists. More than 30 positions were eliminated at The Miami Herald, while other affected publications included The Kansas City Star, The Fresno Bee, The Modesto Bee, and multiple newspapers in Washington state.

Veteran Journalists Lose Decades-Long Community Connections

The laid-off journalists addressed their communities on social media, expressing devastation at losing positions they had held for decades. Davidson had spent 38 years at The Sacramento Bee covering high school sports throughout the region, building deep relationships with coaches, athletes, and readers.

“After 38 years at The Sacramento Bee, I was part of sweeping company layoffs. My last day is Oct. 9. I love my job & my role in the community. I thank coaches, athletes, media & especially readers & followers,” Davidson wrote on X.

Anderson, who had covered the Kings since 2018, described the position as his lifelong ambition. Born and raised in Sacramento, he grew up reading the newspaper’s sports section daily.

“I was born and raised in Sacramento. Went to school every day with The Bee’s sports section in my back pocket,” Anderson wrote. “Covering the Kings was always my dream job. All I wanted to do was cover this team for this newspaper and this community.”

Company Cites Restructuring While Critics Question Profit Priorities

McClatchy described the layoffs as part of a companywide restructuring intended to better match staffing with subscriber interests and the ways readers consume local journalism, according to a notice obtained by Poynter. The company said it was concentrating resources on journalism with the greatest value to subscribers and impact in local communities, emphasizing that the layoffs were not based on individual job performance.

However, California union leaders questioned what the cuts would mean for local coverage and accountability journalism. Michael Applegate, executive officer of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, challenged the company’s priorities. The NewsGuild-CWA criticized McClatchy for eliminating high-skilled employees while the company explores replacing their work with artificial intelligence.

“Getting the job on the 49ers beat to start was a dream come true,” Biderman wrote. “Covering sports around town was so fulfilling because of the readers and their hunger for sports.”

California Newsrooms Face Devastating Reductions

The Fresno Bee laid off seven journalists, including accountability and investigative reporters who had served as crucial government watchdogs. The cuts also included the last remaining employee of the bilingual publication Vida en el Valle, eliminating Spanish-language coverage for the region’s Hispanic community.

In Modesto, three members of a 12-person newsroom were laid off, including a high school sports reporter. Three other reporters had recently left the newspaper, and those positions are not expected to be filled, further gutting the small team’s capacity to cover local news.

Washington State Loses Government Watchdogs and Award Winners

Four McClatchy newsrooms in Washington lost seven reporters, including five in the state’s second-largest city and county. Tacoma will no longer have even a single dedicated journalist tracking city hall, Pierce County government, or local schools, while rapidly growing suburbs and rural towns around the city face becoming a veritable news desert.

The cuts eliminated Washington‘s sports reporter of the year twice over, who had spent decades committed to McClatchy and built a loyal following covering student athletes. An award-winning investigative reporter who had revealed how failed city policies, neighborhood neglect, and persistent poverty earned one street the police nickname “Tacoma’s deadliest” was terminated. The company told the reporter that readers didn’t care about such accountability journalism.

Local Communities Left Without Essential Coverage

The region near the Canadian border lost an environmental watchdog, while the Hispanic community in Eastern Washington can no longer turn to a Spanish-speaking reporter for coverage. The Bradenton Herald in Florida lost a photojournalist who had documented the heart and soul of the community for 27 years, capturing moments of joy, pain, growth, and change in Manatee County.

The departure of these talented reporters, visual journalists, and writers will immediately leave gaping holes in local coverage for dozens of communities across the United States. Sports departments are often among the first to be cut during media layoffs, a trend exemplified earlier this year by The Washington Post, yet as sports becomes a bigger and more significant part of the American economy and society, holding owners and other sports leaders to account grows increasingly important.

Local newspapers have hemorrhaged subscribers and resources for decades, and investment firms like McClatchy have exacerbated these issues, gutting outlets to maximize profit while coverage and accountability wane. These were journalists and media workers who had been asked to adjust, bend, mold, and fit into an ever-changing business, some working for decades at McClatchy, and they had done so seamlessly. Their reward was termination by a company that critics say should spend as much time figuring out how to use high-skilled employees as it does exploring artificial intelligence replacements.