Mashable lay-off count up to 30 including video editorial, business and politics
The raft of redundancies at Mashable include senior video, business and political journalists from its editorial teams as the publisher shifts to root its coverage in digital culture.
So far, 30 staff are believed to have been axed. Mashable has not revealed the number, though posts on social media have clarified as well as revealed some of those people that have left.
Standing offer: First one to hire a laid-off @Mashable staffer gets a bottle of whiskey from me. We lost 30 today. 30 chances to win.
— Brian Ries (@moneyries) April 7, 2016
Those departures include director of video Mike Schmidt, political editor Juana Summers, business editor Heidi Moore and managing director Jonathan Ellis. The exits of chief content officer Jim Roberts and chief revenue officer Seth Rogin were widely reported yesterday (7 April) when news of the redundancies first broke.
While Mashable has scrapped some of its business and politics teams, the company hopes to develop its real-time news coverage, including an increased focus on breaking news and cultural trends being discussed on social networks. That shift will also impact its core coverage - technology, web culture, science, social media, entertainment, business and lifestyle - which will all be told “through a digital lens”, according to Mashable founder Pete Cashmore on the changes.
The entire politics team (and all of the hard news) at @mashable is gone now. — Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) April 7, 2016
Cashmore announced the changes via a post on LinkedIn, revealing his business will move away from covering world news and politics as standalone channels. Consequently, video will become an even bigger part of its output, fuelled by plans to have all its video producers live on the same team.
His announcement comes a week after Mashable secured $15m from Turner to expand its video and branded content offering.