Last week, NPR laid off 84 people and stopped production on four seasonal podcasts, including Invisibilia, Louder Than a Riot and Rough Translation. The company warned in February those cuts would be coming after it projected a $30 million sponsorship shortfall this year.
Thirteen roles in the organization’s digital team are also planned to be cut, but that group unionized through a separate union for broadcast employees and technicians and haven’t yet agreed on a contract with NPR, despite the organization voluntarily recognizing them. This means they cannot be laid off until a contract or separate lay-off agreement is met.
While layoffs often mark the abrupt end of an era at an organization, NPR’s story has stretched into this week, spilling over into multiple, tense all-hands meetings in which impacted employees grilled executives about their decisions. […]
A group of executives, including president and CEO John Lansing, presented various financial metrics and updates on the diversity levels at the organization following the layoffs. As of March 24th, for example, NPR had booked $28.9 million in sponsorship revenue for the first quarter, compared to $41 million the year prior. The team highlighted that diversity levels remained roughly consistent before and after the cuts, though trans people in the programming department dropped, going from 2.5% of the workforce to 1.2%.
It gets better.
These things happen.
Reality always asserts itself over time.
Diversity will save you. Until it won’t.
L – NPR enters The Twilight Zone.
What will the diversity levels look like when they finally shut the doors? Is that no diversity or infinite diversity, a kind of DEI perfection?
Can you imagine applying for a job with an organization obsessed with diversity levels? Never mind your skills, where do you fit on the intersectional matrix?
Folks seem not to know that NPR is funded for most the part by the federal government. Donations do not keep it alive.
This is what happens in collectivist arrangements. they end up fighting over the scraps. Who cares? May they rot in hell. Maybe they already are.
This is what happens when you enable woke pieties and grievances at your organization. They come back to bite you.
Thanks for the good-news article.
Feel good story of the day.
“You Can Avoid Reality, But You Cannot Avoid the Consequences of Avoiding Reality”
Ayn Rand
Poor little useless ones. Cast your covetous eyes northward to your parasitic trans-terhood at the CBC. I feel your pain.
For me, its decline/demise/denouement is Not Particularly Relevant.
“Among the requests: employees wanted to see more specific breakdowns around the number or percentage of employees of different races and identities who were laid off, rather than those of the remaining employees.”
Tells you everything you need to know, right there.
In a rational world those laid off would have been the underperformers. But in today’s world, they get retained.
Pissed-off enough people to result in a $30 million donation shortfall. Way to go!
TBF … NPR has been unlistenable leftist propaganda for decades. I don’t care how softly the readers speak … it is Soviet-styled propaganda 24/7. Complete crap.
After reading that, all I can suggest is to burn it to the ground. There is no fixing NPR.