Washington’s National Public Radio affiliate WAMU shuttered its local news website DCist and laid off 15 employees Friday morning, citing a desire to shift away from digital journalism.
The cuts targeted online news coverage on social issues such as climate change, immigration and criminal justice as part of a strategy to refocus on radio programming, according to several posts on X from current and outgoing employees.
“As of February 23, the site will no longer publish new content,” read a statement from management at DCist.com redirecting web visitors. “Please visit WAMU.org for local news and programming.”
In a post on X, WAMU’s employee union blasted management for shuttering the site and “laying off 15 vital people from our organization.”
“These individuals are the lifeblood of our journalism,” the statement read. “Our hearts are broken.”
WAMU did not respond to a request for comment.
The move comes as leading digital news outlets have announced closings and mass layoffs, citing a slump in digital advertising revenue.
Those have ranged from the abrupt collapse of the startup news site The Messenger last month to BuzzFeed eliminating 16% of its employees Thursday after selling off some of its digital assets.
Vice Media CEO Bruce Dixon on Thursday announced the end of original news reporting at Vice News and the layoffs of hundreds of staffers. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last May.
WAMU General Manager Erika Pulley-Hayes told Axios that the NPR station was “making the choice” to invest in audio programming as it moves away from digital news.
According to Ms. Pulley-Hayes, WAMU plans to hire more audio specialists and producers after eliminating the 15 positions.
Some of the eliminated reporters disputed that narrative in social media posts, stating that they did audio reporting as well as written journalism.
“Would like to gently push back on the framing that this is a pivot to audio,” wrote Morgan Baskin, who covered housing and social policy. “Every DCist/WAMU reporter, like the four laid off today (myself included), writes for web AND produces radio stories.”
“You can’t fill a newscast without reporters!”
Former DCist editor and WAMU reporter Martin Austermuhle, who left the company last year, criticized the move in a series of posts from Switzerland, where he now lives.
“After today’s leadership-led bloodbath, it’s looking like @wamu885 will be left with less than a half-dozen reporters,” Mr. Austermuhle wrote. “At full strength sometime in late 2022, it had at least three times that number.”
In other social media posts, local politicians and journalists emphasized the loss of local news coverage that the cuts will cause.
“I’m concerned and sorrowed that DCist is shutting down,” wrote Democratic D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.
“This is a bad direction,” added Robert White, a Democrat and at-large D.C. Council member. “DC is a home town, not just a federal town and local coverage shining light on local issues matters. Someone said ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness.’”
Metro CEO Randy Clarke wrote that “if we want quality [in journalism] we need to pay for it.”
Jackie Kucinich, The Boston Globe’s Washington bureau chief and a CNN political analyst, said the changes come as “DC needs oversight over and accountability from our chaotic local elected leaders more than ever.”
“Cool,” Ms. Kucinich wrote sarcastically. “This is fine.”
But Chuck Thies, a longtime local Democratic Party operative who managed the election campaign of former District Mayor Vincent Gray, offered a different perspective.
He said that “news sites don’t get shut down if they attract readers.”
“You will hear staff and supporters blame management for terminating @DCist, but it would still be operating if editors/writers produced content that attracted enough eyes to pay the bills,” Mr. Thies wrote.