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* Crain’s…
Chicago Public Media is offering Sun-Times and WBEZ staff members buyout offers as the company comes up on the three-year anniversary of its high-profile merger.
Sun-Times staff and WBEZ business teams, but not WBEZ’s newsroom, are being offered a voluntary separation, according to a memo obtained by Crain’s. Employees who opt to leave Chicago Public Media will be offered an incentive package, though details are unclear.
* Excerpt of the WBEZ announcement…
Today, we announced a voluntary separation program across parts of our organization, including the Chicago Sun-Times staff and WBEZ business teams; the WBEZ newsroom will not be impacted. We are offering our employees the opportunity to voluntarily leave Chicago Public Media with an incentive package. Our hope is that this action and other efforts will reduce our costs so that we can avoid more significant cost-cutting measures down the road.
This is a proactive decision that allows us to align our organization’s size with our goals while strengthening our most valuable and impactful initiatives and ensuring our financial sustainability. While we’ve made strides in adapting to the rapidly changing media landscape, these efforts haven’t yet translated into the sustainable revenue we need. Making this adjustment now is a necessary step to position us for long-term success and fully realize the transformative potential of our combined organization.
…Adding… The Chicago Sun-Times Guild…
We are disappointed by today’s announcement that Chicago Public Media will seek voluntary staff buyouts.
Our union is frustrated that our organization’s management did not secure more revenue in the past three years to avoid staffing cuts and secure our sustainability.
While we understand this move is meant to cut long-term costs, it’s harder to swallow knowing the exorbitant executive salaries and bonuses we’ve seen CPM shell out in the past few years.
We hope everyone at the organization will share in the pain on our path to sustainability.
We have questions about what these labor cuts could mean for our newsrooms. We urge CPM management in the strongest terms possible to focus all efforts on securing the revenue necessary to support our journalism.
We also urge CPM to find savings in areas other than labor so that our newsrooms can continue serving Chicago. We need all hands on deck to produce the quality print, digital, audio and visual reporting that has made the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ the institutions that they are.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jan 22, 25 @ 11:32 am
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NPR stations are hurting a lot across the board right now. The situations at downstate NPR stations are worse still, though it doesn’t get the same levels of press. It’s a shame more of the local journalism task force didn’t focus on public media a little more, especially since many are affiliated with public universities.
Comment by Drifter182 Wednesday, Jan 22, 25 @ 11:46 am
Kind of kidding/ not kidding but would one way to accomplish this be to let donors/subscribers vote on which staff is informed their services are no longer needed and give them a buyout? Maybe it’s a way to get the most productive and popular staff to stay.
Comment by Ghost of Art Petacque Wednesday, Jan 22, 25 @ 11:46 am
The AI is strong in this one.
Comment by PublicServant Wednesday, Jan 22, 25 @ 12:07 pm
==We also urge CPM to find savings in areas other than labor==
It’s someone’s labor somewhere.
Comment by City Zen Wednesday, Jan 22, 25 @ 1:36 pm
=The impacted employees should start podcasts. And learn to code.=
The number of profitable podcasts would shock you and anyone can code now - ask ChatGTP. Those fields are not long term solutions.
Comment by Cool Papa Bell Wednesday, Jan 22, 25 @ 1:37 pm
To the Guild’s statement. The complaint about generous salaries for execs is a legit hit, but “why didn’t you raise more money?” feels off.
I know that I am hit up for money by WBEZ left and right (well, primarily left). I don’t think them not hitting revenue goals is because they didn’t try.
Comment by Montrose Wednesday, Jan 22, 25 @ 1:43 pm
I’d love if someone leaked the salary bonuses for the top-level execs.
Comment by Alton Sinkhole Wednesday, Jan 22, 25 @ 2:09 pm
“I’d love if someone leaked the salary bonuses for the top-level execs.” Chicago Public Media is a non-profit so executive salaries are public. Just look up their 990s. In 2024, Top Key Employees and Officers’ salaries ranged from $685K to $112k
Comment by Interested observer Wednesday, Jan 22, 25 @ 2:22 pm