McClatchy cuts 30% of newsroom staff as California news crisis deepens

McClatchy, once the third-largest U.S. newspaper publisher, has issued layoff notices to more than 90 unionized journalists at 17 of its newspapers, cutting roughly 30% of its NewsGuild-CWA staff. The reductions eliminated the Sacramento Bee’s sports and opinion desks, trimmed the Modesto Bee’s newsroom by a quarter, and slashed the Fresno Bee’s staff by 41%, including the last reporter for its Spanish-language outlet Vida en el Valle.

The company’s decline traces back to a costly 2009 acquisition of Knight-Ridder, a bankruptcy filing in 2020, and a 2020 sale to Chatham Asset Management that shifted ownership from a family to a hedge fund. Amid falling print circulation, dwindling digital traffic from Google algorithm changes, and the rise of AI and social video platforms, the chain is turning to AI tools that have sparked internal resistance. Lawmakers are pushing Assembly Bill 2222, which would provide refundable tax credits tied to newsroom employment, but the proposal is contested by business groups and may not receive Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature. The layoffs highlight a broader crisis in California, where more than 12,000 local journalists have disappeared since 2002 and nearly 40% of U.S. local newspapers have vanished.