Morning of Long Knives at National Geographic.

[LazarX]

Excerpted from this article on alternet.

The memo went out, and November 3rd 2015 came to the National Geographic office. This was the day in which Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox took over National Geographic. The management of National Geographic sent out an email telling its staff, all of its staff, all to report to their headquarters, and wait by their phones. This pulled back every person who was in the field, every photographer, every reporter, even those on vacation had to show up on this fateful day.
As these phones rang, one by one National Geographic let go the award-winning staff, and the venerable institution was no more.

The name now belongs to Rupert Murdoch, and he has plans for it. The CEO of National Geographic Society, Greg Knell, tried to claim back in September that “there won’t be an [editorial] turn in a direction that is different from the National Geographic heritage.” Murdoch’s move today only served to prove Knell’s words hollow, with hundreds of talented people now served their pink slips. And with the recognition that Murdoch’s other enterprises do not reflect the standards held by National Geographic, and with Murdoch’s history of changing the editorial direction of purchased properties, today’s move indicates that we can expect a similar shift for National Geographic.

The National Geographic Society of Washington will lay off about 180 of its 2,000-member workforce in a cost-cutting move that follows the sale of its famous magazine and other assets to a company controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
The reduction, the largest in the organization’s 127-year history, appears to affect almost every department of the nonprofit organization, including the magazine, which the society has published since just after its founding in 1888. It also will affect people who work for the National Geographic Channel, the most profitable part of the organization. Several people in the channel’s fact-checking department, for example, were terminated on Tuesday, employees said...

In addition to the layoffs and buyouts, National Geographic Society said it would freeze its pension plan for eligible employees, eliminate medical coverage for future retirees and change its contributions to an employee 401(k) plan so that all employees receive the same percentage contribution.

[Sissyl]

Well, crap. Wish I was surprised. Murdoch is shit, and does shit.

Here's hoping the people laid off find new work under better management.

[Sharoth]

This sucks. But I am not surprised either. Anti-science at it's best.

[BigNorseWolf]

Great. Now we're going to have 180 reporters in kenya trying to track down the birthplace of obama.

[Gisher]

The Washington Post's article on this topic.

Note the cuts to the fact-checking department.

[,]

I really fail to see what Citizen Murdoch hopes now to achieve.

He has a brand name that pretty much no one will now actually buy, since the reason for their purchases is obviously disappearing.

I am... curious to watch further developments.

I am immensely saddened to see such an institution... vanish. :(

[GreyWolfLord]

I'm not seeing where it states that the fact checker department was the primary focus.

????

I've seen a supposed statement that employees state that this department lost a few (which would probably be expected), but without more context (for example, how many were lost in other departments, and if it's a slim down of the company for costs...what percentages of the other departments were cut as well for comparison. If you cut 50% of your journalists for example, it makes little sense to keep all your fact checkers as they'll have 50% less work...etc).

I have seen where the reason they chose the cuts was that they've lost 65% of the revenues over the past decades and hence were going to streamline the management (aka...upset a LOT of the people that were there). They cut from every department in an effort to make it so they can turn a profit.

There's not enough information beyond that for me to tell what else is going on, and there's not enough information on specifically which staff were cut.

What's more is that they cut staff from their more profitable area of the channel from what I understand.

Overall, a 9% cut may not be deep enough, even with the Pension plan freezing and changes to the retirement plans if the financial situation is correct.

I imagine the cut from the seniority members, which also would have saved more money (but upset a LOT of the leadership). That would make sense in light of this statement

Quote:

the decision to undertake the layoffs was not part of the September deal with Murdoch. “We wanted to take care of our long-serving employees,” M.J. Jacobsen said.

Currently, I think people have jumped to conclusions thus far about the cuts. In appearance, it seems that it is trying to cut costs to the organization, of which the retirement plan changes and cuts to the departments would be a standard (if disloyal to your employee) move in American Business practices these days.

[therealthom]

What was NGS thinking?

At least I've got a two year backlog to help ease the pain when I sever my subscription.

[Krensky]

The problem, GW, is that NatGeo is a NPO, they're not supposed to make a profit.

[BigNorseWolf]

Hardly Murdochs biggest fan , but 180/2000 doesn't seem all that severe for a corporate take over. It looks like they're just cutting and expecting everyone else to make up the slack. (from this anyway, gods knows what else they're doing)

[GreyWolfLord]

Krensky wrote:

The problem, GW, is that NatGeo is a NPO, they're not supposed to make a profit.

NPO's aren't necessarily not making a profit (look at ALL the non-profit hospitals out there) as much as it isn't doing it like a corporation does normally.

CEO's and others can still make mega bucks and the organization still needs to remain enough in the black to remain solvent.

Losing 65% of their income had put NG in the red for a while. Supposedly there actually were bigger cuts between 2008 and 2010, but they didn't happen all at once like this one, they were drawn out over several years.

Still, a 9% trade for a 65% loss is actually not that big of a cut overall.

That is, if this is the ONLY cut...could be more coming. Supposedly there have been buy out offers to people working there, so hidden cuts appear to be occurring as well.

However, it looks like a standard slimming situation from what was described as they are also doing the standard of doing away with pensions and retirement options in favor of focusing solely on that 401K thing that American businesses do these days.

Basically shafting the worker for profit and such.

Thus far, it sounds like a standard slimming operation for a business after being acquired. It also sounds like they many of those getting cut are the higher wage earners that have been there for a while from various comments. That also makes sense in a slimming situation.

I imagine they are going to focus more on the television and other areas of NG instead of the magazine (which has been shedding subscribers for a while now) in regards to bringing in income.

That said, I have NOT subscribed to them recently. I was thinking about it right about when the acquisition/merge took place, and decided to wait on it. I'm still in the air on whether I will or won't and will wait it out to see what happens to the quality of NG. I don't think this is a sign of anything yet, but it hasn't convinced me that I'm going to buy a subscription at all. It could be a bad sign for things in the future.

But it's too early to tell and what's come out about the cuts thus far is waaaaay too little information to make any opinion on regarding that for me.

[Lawrence of Qadira]

There is a term for a workforce cut by 10%—decimate.

I will also be cancelling our subscription. Deeply disappointed.

[BigNorseWolf]

Lawrence of Qadira wrote:

There is a term for a workforce cut by 10%—decimate.

I will also be cancelling our subscription. Deeply disappointed.

Maybe thats the point, Murdoch gave the command to decimate all of the staff and someone took him literally to save more jobs :)

[LazarX]

Krensky wrote:

The problem, GW, is that NatGeo is a NPO, they're not supposed to make a profit.

That was the old NGS. Presumably National Geographic is going to be retuned to match the exacting standards of the rest of the FOX Empire.

Alexander Graham Bell must be turning over in his grave.