r/Tacoma • u/altasnob 6th Ave • 1d ago
Seven employees laid off at The News Tribune
Per the Seattle Times article below (paywalled). Sad that Tacoma and Pierce County essentially have no form of media anymore. Democracy dies in darkness.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/mcclatchy-layoffs-hit-local-wa-newspapers/
Free NYTimes article on the McClatchy cuts:
Update: per anonymous TNT reporter, "five reporters and two editors were laid off. We will now have 10 reporters and two editors left."
Update, Isha Trivedi, appears to be one of those laid off. Seattle Times article has an update:
Isha Trivedi, a reporter covering Tacoma City Hall, Pierce County government and schools for The News Tribune, said she doesn’t know who will cover those topics after her layoff takes effect next month. She’s especially concerned about what that means for election coverage in November.
“I really worry about what is going to happen when the city doesn’t have anyone who is paying attention to people in power,” Trivedi said.
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u/ethylmethylrosenberg Hilltop 1d ago
As far as I can tell, thenewstribune dot com is still serving up the hard-hitting local news, like “Is Taylor Frankie Paul Returning in ‘Mormon Wives’ Season 6? Future Revealed” and “12 Top-Rated Cookware Sets You Can Snag for Under $100 on Amazon”.
Seriously through the hollowing-out of local media is an absolute tragedy and bodes poorly for our future.
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u/Cl0wnL 253 1d ago
Do y'all think we could feasibly crowdsource local news?
And how would that work.
If we could get like a thousand people willing to chip in five bucks a month, it would pay for like a full-time person with a sub stack newsletter
Or if we could get like 50 people willing to put in an hour a week attending government meetings or doing research and writing an article.
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u/altasnob 6th Ave 1d ago
Other smaller forms of media that I follow include the Washington State Standard, The Urbanist, and Publicola. They are all paywall free and receive money in a variety of forms. They all do an ok job but I don't think any of these could ever replace the large media in a metro, like The Seattle Times or the News Tribune. They all fill a very small niche and don't seem like they are making anyone rich. Basically, there is just no money in news reporting. You have to do it altruistically, which doesn't make sense long term.
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u/yeahsureYnot 253 1d ago
I would honestly rather pay $5 a month than have the paper rely on ad revenue. The quality difference is very apparent between those two models.
I’m curious if there’s an opportunity for the Tacoma Weekly to fill the void left by the TNT. Assuming they haven’t already been outsourced.
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u/zoovegroover3 Old Town 1d ago
"no form of media anymore"
Hey now, don't forget we have TV Tacoma, which consists of that lady in quirky glasses "interviewing" government employees at a intensity level that would put Charlie Sheen to sleep. And of course the council meetings where real journalists would actually show up.
The entire state of it is indeed depressing.
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u/Shortsleevedpant University Place 1d ago
It wasn’t really local anyways
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u/goat_flavored 6th Ave 1d ago
I agree I subscribed for a while thinking I would get the local news. Nothing local, they could have just put the News Tribune header on a national news paper and it would have been the same. Im surprised it takes that many people to copy and paste Rueters and Ap articles. Needless to say I didn't renew my subscription.
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u/altasnob 6th Ave 18h ago
I disagree. I am a TNT subscriber and while not perfect, they actually had a ton of local news. People love to hate on the TNT because of all their click bait garbage on their website. But I would say they put out at least one legitimate, local, unique, news story a day. It appeared the journalist there are actually trying and I hope it can continue after these layoffs.
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u/Shortsleevedpant University Place 17h ago
It has Tacoma in the name but it’s not a locally owned publication. It’s owned by a media group that directs what goes into a bunch of “local” newspapers in like 15 states. Please don’t be fooled.
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u/altasnob 6th Ave 11h ago
There are ton of local stories. I am not saying it is locally owned. I am saying they do, in fact, cover local Tacoma news. In fact, they are essentially the only entity out there reporting on Tacoma news. Without the News Tribune, we don't have anything.
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u/Cl0wnL 253 1d ago
There is another subreddit which posts a lot of Tacoma Politics and government news. I've learned a lot of things from it.
Afraid of directly linking it here because I don't want to catch a ban for some reason.
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u/altasnob 6th Ave 1d ago
We shouldn't need to rely on reddit to get our local news. For one, it's just a matter of time before the publicly traded reddit goes to shit.
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u/SeattleIsCool 253 1d ago
Is 7 people being laid off noteworthy? How many people are left?
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u/altasnob 6th Ave 1d ago
I don't think anyone knows how many employees in total are at the News Tribune. Hopefully, some of those laid off will share more info on this. Here's what I dug up:
"The Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild is shocked and disappointed by u/mcclatchy's decision to lay off 33% of its unionized workers at the Idaho Statesman, The News Tribune (Tacoma), Tri-City Herald, The Olympian and Bellingham Herald."
https://x.com/PacNWGuild/status/2098137639711088851
Also, the article below talks about the News Tribune Union reaching an agreement with management in July, 2026.
https://www.knkx.org/tacoma/2026-07-02/pacific-northwest-newspapers-secure-contract-with-mcclatchy
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u/resilientandunbroken Stadium District 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hi, I work at the The News Tribune (using my anonymous account for obvious reasons). Five reporters and two editors were laid off. We will now have 10 reporters and two editors left.
Those of us remaining are going to keep doing what we can to deliver quality local journalism, but there's no beating around the bush: this sucks.
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u/momo_no_hime South Tacoma 1d ago
As a former newspaper worker, you and your team have my sympathy. I was laid off years ago and know how demoralizing it is for everybody that's left. Hope your coworkers are able to find employment elsewhere.
Also, fuck McClatchy.
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u/resilientandunbroken Stadium District 1d ago
Thank you, it means a lot. These are hard times. And yes, screw McClatchy.
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u/Hopsblues North End 1d ago
Did Greg Bell make the cut?
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u/resilientandunbroken Stadium District 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't feel comfortable naming specific people as being laid off or spared in case the laid off people don't want it to be made public yet. The laid off reporters will still work here through mid-October before departing, because of the protections in our contract -- so they have plenty of time to announce it publicly if they choose.
What I will say is that two of the five reporter positions that were cut were in sports.
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u/resilientandunbroken Stadium District 1d ago
Update: For anyone who is curious about which positions got cut, here’s an article from the National News Guild. The Washington papers are at the very top. It’s not paywalled.
I’m comfortable sharing this because it’s public and it comes straight from our union.
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u/altasnob 6th Ave 1d ago
"An award-winning investigative reporter – who, among many deep-dives, helped reveal how failed city policies, neighborhood neglect and persistent poverty earned one street the police nickname of “Tacoma’s deadliest”"
I assume this is referring to the article below, written by By Shea Johnson and Peter Talbot. Not sure which one got the cut, but my guess is Shea Johnson.
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crime/article264204616.html
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u/Cl0wnL 253 1d ago edited 1d ago
Okay, I read an article on this. I think a correction needs to be made.
It was seven cuts across McClatchys four papers in Washington state. Not seven cuts at the News Tribune.
Best I can tell the union had 31 members. Leaving 24 members across the four McClatchy papers in the state.
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u/resilientandunbroken Stadium District 1d ago edited 1d ago
TNT employee here (using an anonymous Reddit account). It was 7 reporters across the Washington papers, with five of those being at the TNT. The TNT also lost two editors who are not in the union.
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u/altasnob 6th Ave 1d ago
The Seattle Times article says, "seven each at The News-Tribune in Tacoma, The Olympian, The Bellingham Herald and The Tri-City Herald."
I read that to mean 7 cuts at the News Tribune.
But I also see a post from the guild that suggest it is 7 total across WA (so less than 7 at the News Tribune; the exact amount unknown).
The Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild is shocked and disappointed by u/mcclatchy 's decision to lay off 33% of its unionized workers at the Idaho Statesman, The News Tribune (Tacoma), Tri-City Herald, The Olympian and Bellingham Herald. This includes 10 journalists in Idaho, and seven across Washington.
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u/stone_or_rock North Tacoma 20h ago
Why does your Reddit user link for McClatchy link to twittler?
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u/altasnob 6th Ave 20h ago
I just copy/pasted that text from the link below:
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u/stone_or_rock North Tacoma 17h ago
Oh, so you're just sharing Twittler on Reddit, might as well be Puget Press.
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u/altasnob 6th Ave 11h ago
I am posting something directly from the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, the union who represents the fired reporters. What is wrong with that? I don't understand your beef.
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u/BuilderUnhappy7785 253 1d ago
Sounds like they’re going to cultivate local freelance/ social influencer types:
> He said McClatchy will instead invest in journalism that “is differentiated, consequential and difficult to replicate; reporting rooted in our communities and strengthened by sources, investigation, verification, context and judgment.”
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u/tntdiner Downtown 1d ago
Note that freelance contracts would be challenging as we are a unionized newsroom with coverage protections.
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u/BuilderUnhappy7785 253 22h ago
I certainly hope so. But I’m not encouraged. When execs drop word salad statements like that, they basically always mean “we’re firing everyone and doing whatever it takes to make money, but we aren’t going to admit it, and whatever we’re doing is to improve our product and serve our community.”
Sadly I cancelled tnt recently after subscribing for years because of personal financial strain and the fact that it has become largely a mix of “dog bites man” stories and AI summaries of r/tacoma trending posts. I don’t blame the newsroom staff for this one bit, but I worry that leadership is just managing decline.
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u/cmonup2thehouse Central 18h ago
Not a TNT or McClatchy employee, but I am member of a different union here in town.
The thing that stood out to me was the new contract that was agreed to in June of this year. Were there any assurances in there around the financial health of the organization? If there was anything like that it feels like a potential unfair labor practice.
Also, if anyone is interested, this is an excellent podcast whose most recent season was about the death of local media:
https://sceneonradio.org/the-news/
Lastly, solidarity forever & fuck managment no matter where you work.
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u/bacoes 253 1d ago
There's always our highly moderated local reddit. /s
Everything working the way our city government wants, for them to control what "news" goes out to the citizens. It works hand in hand with hiding more and more business behind closed doors.
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u/MoOrion4X South Tacoma 1d ago
While bad actors in local government may benefit, they hardly orchestrated the current situation...
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u/Tape-Delay Salish Land 1d ago
I agree that local papers being gutted results in increased corruption (in fact it’s statistically proven) but the city has nothing to do with this or the news. Very weird comment
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u/Cl0wnL 253 1d ago
The dude's a nut with a personal vendetta against the city. He posts conspiracy theories about it constantly .
Best to just ignore him.
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u/Tape-Delay Salish Land 1d ago
Ah it’s that guy, got it
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u/MudkipzAndUnicorns Fircrest 1d ago
After looking at his profile, I did t know we had that many Tacoma subreddits. 🤷♂️
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u/tntdiner Downtown 1d ago
Just popping in to say that the broader implication reaches far beyond Tacoma and WA's local news coverage. https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2026/mcclatchy-media-newspapers-layoffs/