McClatchy cuts more than 30 journalist jobs at Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald

McClatchy has eliminated more than 30 journalist jobs at the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, part of companywide layoffs that the union representing its newsrooms said reached more than 90 employees.

The NewsGuild-CWA said Friday that the cuts affected 17 McClatchy publications and accounted for about 30 percent of the chain’s unionized workforce.

The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald lost more than 30 positions combined, according to the union. Other affected outlets included The Sacramento Bee, The Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The cuts came during a difficult stretch for the newspaper industry, which has faced years of declining print revenue as advertising and readership move online. McClatchy did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the specific cuts in Miami.

Union leaders said the layoffs would weaken news coverage in local communities, where newspapers have long handled courts, local government, schools, police and neighborhood reporting.

The NewsGuild-CWA represents reporters, editors and other media workers at McClatchy papers. The union said the latest cuts eliminated more than 90 unionized positions across the company.

One Miami Herald reporter, Carol Marbin Mille, described the newsroom’s condition in stark terms.

“We are waist-deep in the quicksand and we are still sinking,” she said.

The Herald and El Nuevo Herald have undergone multiple rounds of downsizing over the past two decades. The newspapers left their Doral office in 2020 and later moved to a Miami location.

McClatchy owns daily and weekly newspapers in several states. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and emerged later that year under the ownership of Chatham Asset Management.

The union has not said what immediate steps it will take in response to the layoffs.