Sports Illustrated & HuffPost Layoffs Spur New Resource Page for Laid Off Journalists
Following last night’s news of additional layoffs at HuffPost and massive cuts to the Sports Illustrated staff, in addition to closures and layoffs earlier this week at Waycross Journal Herald and Journal Tribune, the Save Journalism Project released a new resource page for recently laid-off journalists, featuring health and wellness; fellowships and grants; and professional development sections. The page also includes an option for journalists to submit resources they found helpful during transitions to freelance or in the aftermath of a layoff.
According to Laura Bassett, co-founder of the Save Journalism Project and former senior politics editor for HuffPost before being laid off in January 2019, “Big tech’s journalist death count continues to rise, and this one hits particularly close to home. Last night, my former colleagues and friends at HuffPost were dealt the same blow that I received earlier this year. Across the city, talented writers at the iconic Sports Illustrated were summarily laid off and replaced by contractors. In Maine and in Georgia, communities lost their only local news option. This is unacceptable. My heart goes out to all the great journalists laid off this week and throughout this year. We published this page because these are the questions we had: what’s next? How do I get health insurance? Who can I call? We hope that it can provide some help to those in similar situations.”