The beginning of the end.
Via NY Post:
The ax is swinging at Vice Media.
The Brooklyn-based gonzo news outfit said it will slash 10 percent of its workforce, or about 250 jobs — the latest in a wave of layoffs that have hit a new generation of media companies including BuzzFeed and HuffPost.
The fresh carnage at Vice was announced Friday by Chief Executive Nancy Dubuc, a former A+E chief who was brought in last March amid reports of a frat-house culture at the company under its co-founder and larger-than-life ex-CEO Shane Smith.
Smith — under pressure last spring over a slew of complaints about sexual misconduct at the millennial news outlet — relinquished the reins so that Dubuc could come in and clean up Vice’s culture and lavish spending in order to bring it to profitability.
All Vice departments are expected to have layoffs, as the company eyes redundancies overseas and focuses on growth businesses, including producing commercial spots on TV and the web for corporate clients.
“Having finalized the 2019 budget, our focus shifts to executing our goals and hitting our marks,” Dubuc wrote in a memo sent to staff on Friday morning. “We will make Vice the best manifestation of itself and cement its place long into the future.”
Vice will no longer divvy up its business country by country, instead organizing it according to larger regions and business lines.