Local news startup TBD.com cut about two-thirds of its staff Wednesday morning and will begin focusing on arts and entertainment, according to employees. The Albritton Communications startup spared most of its arts and entertainment reporters and a handful of news staff.
Editor Eric Wemple was told “that TBD needs to move to the part of its operations that are most promising in the future, and that’ll be arts and entertainment, reporting on lifestyle, places where we’ve gotten the most traction,” he said.
The firings at the six-month-old Web site, owned by the parent company of Politico and WJLA Channel 7, came about two weeks after news that WJLA would be taking over operations at the startup. Employees were told at the time that there would be no layoffs.
The two dozen people who lost their jobs Wednesday were told they could apply for about eight new positions that will open as WJLA expands its TV operations.
The wholesale changes reflect impatience in the industry for “new media” enterprises like TBD to start making a profit.
“The idea when we started was that we were really going to be rethinking local news, and I don’t think there’s anyone here who didn’t come for that,” said Arts and Entertainment Editor Andrew Beaujon, interviewed at a bar with his colleagues Wednesday afternoon. “The other piece was that we were told that [Allbritton] was in this for three to five years.
“Fair enough if we’re not making money, but no one would’ve come if they had known we had a six-month chance,” he said.
Wemple added that the “biggest frustration is that there was a dream there that we had some time to figure things out … we do want to carry on, though, and we hope that people keep coming to TBD.com.”
