HuffPost laid off 39 journalists on Wednesday, including the site’s first and only Pulitzer Prize winner.
In a statement from the Writers Guild of America East, the union representing the site’s reporters, the downsizing was “part of a corporate-wide layoff in connection with Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo.”
Senior military correspondent David Wood, who won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, was among those pink-slipped, according to HuffPost media writer Michael Calderone.
Downsized writers will receive a “collectively-bargained severance package that includes two months’ salary plus a week of pay for each year of service and continued health benefits,” according to the WGAE statement.
The HuffPost jobs are among 2,100 that are expected to disappear as Verizon integrates its existing AOL brands, including HuffPost, with its newly acquired Yahoo media assets.
More than 2,000 workers will lose their jobs at Oath, the new subsidiary formed between Yahoo and AOL following Verizon’s $4.5 billion buyout of Yahoo, Oath’s CEO Tim Armstrong told CNBC Wednesday morning.
An Oath spokesperson confirmed the layoffs to TheWrap. Roughly 15 percent of the combined AOL-Yahoo workforce will be let go, which amounts to an estimated 2,100 workers who will lose their jobs, with the cuts starting on Wednesday.
“It’s mainly focused on us putting more resources toward the front end, towards the consumer side,” said Armstrong on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “Those are mainly happening this week. We’re trying to get everything done that we can,” he added.
39 HuffPost layoffs, per our union: pic.twitter.com/thN5fs4oWF
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) June 14, 2017
One especially notable journalist laid off is David Wood, who won HuffPost's first and only Pulitzer. From 2012 https://t.co/dQKmGrDLK5 https://t.co/BT5m7V90gu
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) June 14, 2017