Bloomberg to sack a third of BusinessWeek staff

Bloomberg may lay off about 130 employees in BusinessWeek, which the global financial news and data provider acquired recently, according to several media reports.

BusinessWeek will lay off up to 130 workers, about a third of its staff, as Bloomberg LP prepares to take over the magazine from McGraw-Hill Companies Inc, according to both Reuters and the New York Post. About half the cuts are expected to come on the 200-strong editorial side, reports said.
 
The reports say that editorial staffers are being called in one by one. "If there is a BusinessWeek representative to meet in the meeting, it means you're being fired. If there is a Bloomberg person in the meeting, it means you are being offered a job," a source is quoted as saying.

Among those getting the chop are On the Media columnist Jon Fine, who has been on a sabbatical travelling with his wife, Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby. James Leone, the founder of BusinessWeek's online video group, is also out, along with his five-person staff. Technology columnist Steve Wildstrom and senior correspondent Rob Hof are also out.

News of the job cuts comes on the same day the Associated Press said it is laying off 90 news department workers, or about 3 per cent of its worldwide news staff, and capped a grim week for journalists whose jobs at many US news outlets have been drying up in recent years.

BusinessWeek employees there are getting a severance package that includes two weeks of pay for every year they worked at the magazine, a third source at the magazine told Reuters, insisting on anonymity to avoid violating a nondisclosure agreement that McGraw attached to the severance package.

A Bloomberg spokeswoman said the 130 number was inaccurate, but declined to comment further. A McGraw-Hill spokesman was not immediately available for comment.