What Do McClatchy's Cuts Mean for Pitching a Local Paper?

What happened on 10 September

McClatchy, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2020 under the ownership of the investment firm Chatham Asset Management, made its deepest cuts in years on Thursday 10 September. Poynter reported that evening that more than 90 journalists were affected, by the estimates of the unions representing them, across at least 13 papers in eight states, with some newsrooms losing upwards of 40% of their staff. A week later CJR, citing the NewsGuild, put it at more than 90 unionised workers across 17 publications. McClatchy did not respond to Poynter's request for comment and has not published its own figures.

The numbers vary by paper and by who is counting. At the Miami Herald, CJR reported 20 union journalists and five managers laid off, about a quarter of the newsroom; Poynter reported 20 layoffs plus ten vacant positions eliminated, and quoted the deputy investigations editor Carol Marbin Miller saying the newsroom, roughly 300 journalists when she joined in 2000, would be under 50. The Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild said it lost a third of its members at five Washington and Idaho papers. Straight Arrow News reported that the Lexington Herald-Leader's newsroom was cut by more than half. On 2 October the Tampa Bay station WMNF reported that the Bradenton Herald, after three layoffs, had two reporters and an editor left.

Which beats went

The cuts were not spread evenly across subjects. Poynter reported that they fell on reporters, photographers and videographers covering government, education, accountability and sports. The Miami Herald lost its city of Miami and city of Miami Beach beats; Marbin Miller asked on X how the paper could cover Miami without a Miami reporter. The Fresno Bee lost seven people, including accountability reporters and a recently hired city hall reporter. The Charlotte Observer's only data reporter said she had been cut. The Bradenton Herald lost its accountability reporter and a photojournalist of 27 years.

CJR reported that none of the remaining reporters it spoke to had been told whether they would take on additional beats. For anyone outside the newsroom, that means the coverage map in a press list compiled before September is not a reliable guide to who now covers a given subject, or whether anyone does.

McClatchy's explanation

The company's notice to the Pacific Media Workers Guild, quoted by Poynter, said McClatchy was “reshaping its newsroom structure to more closely align resources with changing subscriber interests and the ways audiences engage with local news” and focusing on “journalism that subscribers value”. A memo from Greg Farmer, executive vice president for local news, quoted in a Dallas Morning News column on 1 October, said the company had maintained its investment in local news for five years while consumer revenue fell 41%, and “can no longer continue investing where subscriber interest does not support the investment”.

Unions and laid-off reporters read it differently. Michael Applegate of the Pacific Media Workers Guild told Poynter: “We've seen a major investment in AI, and we're seeing a major disinvestment in jobs.” We are not in a position to settle that dispute, and McClatchy has not said that AI replaced any role.

The AI tools and the new brands

Two developments matter to anyone whose news ends up in a McClatchy paper.

The content scaling agent. CJR and Straight Arrow News describe an AI tool, which McClatchy calls a content scaling agent, that takes a reporter's article and produces versions of different lengths for different audiences, under the reporter's byline. Reporters at the Sacramento Bee, the Miami Herald and other papers withheld their bylines from its output this spring, and CJR reported in May that one such version introduced an error that was later changed without a correction. Contracts ratified this summer in Washington, Idaho and at the Centre Daily Times in Pennsylvania include limits on AI, including bans on using it to replace union work, according to CJR.

The Content Innovation Lab. Straight Arrow News reported that less than a week after the layoffs, staff received an email welcoming new hires who started in August, including three editors for the lab. A job listing it quoted says the lab will use AI to launch new brands “tied to dedicated communities of interest around travel, food, outdoor recreation, sports and even crime”, producing “a steady stream of reader-focused, high-quality content for national and regional audiences”. One editor described a soon-to-launch brand, Coastal South, on LinkedIn; another is building a college sports vertical. Separately, McClatchy-owned Trend Hunter publishes articles on McClatchy sites carrying the disclosure that they were “created by content specialists using various tools, including AI”, according to CJR. An analysis by the detection firm Originality.ai, shared with Straight Arrow News, estimated that up to 12% of Kansas City Star articles from June to August were likely AI-generated; that is a vendor estimate we have not checked.

What it means for pitching

What follows is our reading for a company or agency that pitches local news, not a finding of the sources.

Check the beat before the pitch. A media list built before 10 September will contain reporters who have left. A reporter's most recent bylines on the paper's own site are the quickest check. Old bylines usually stay up after a reporter leaves, which is why a list built from search results is especially unreliable; we tested how long departed reporters' author pages persist in what happens to coverage when a journalist leaves.

Send stories that arrive complete. A newsroom that lost its city hall reporter still has to fill pages. A pitch that comes with the data, a named spokesperson available that day and usable photographs is easier for a stretched editor to take. That cuts both ways: it also makes the paper more dependent on what companies supply, which readers and editors are right to treat with care.

Expect more than one version of your coverage. If a story about your company is run through the scaling tool, there may be several versions at different lengths. If something is wrong in one, ask whether the correction has been made in all of them.

Judge the new brands on their own terms. A national food, travel or outdoor brand from the Content Innovation Lab may well want company stories. It is not the same as a feature in the Miami Herald or the Kansas City Star, even if it sits on the same platform, and an article produced with AI tools carries a different weight with editors, readers and AI systems. What we know about how AI use affects a publisher's standing is collected in what happens when a publisher uses AI.

Look beyond the chain. Where a paper has lost a beat, local television, nonprofit newsrooms and trade publications may now be the outlets that cover it. California, home to three of the affected papers, has just created a journalism tax credit meant to add reporters, which we covered in whether California's journalism tax credit will add reporters.

Methodology and limitations

This explainer is based on Poynter's report of 10 September 2026, CJR's analysis of 17 September 2026, Straight Arrow News's report of 17 September 2026, the WMNF report of 2 October 2026 and John McCaa's column in The Dallas Morning News of 1 October 2026, all read in full on 5 October 2026. McClatchy's notice to the Pacific Media Workers Guild and Greg Farmer's memo were read as quoted by Poynter and The Dallas Morning News; we have not seen either document. The Charlotte Observer figure is The Charlotte Ledger's, read secondhand via Poynter. Reports that the Sacramento Bee's whole sports desk was cut were seen only as headlines and are not relied on. Figures come from unions, reporters and outlets, not from McClatchy, and use different bases; the chart notes the differences. The Originality.ai estimates are a vendor's, reported by Straight Arrow News, and AI detection is probabilistic. We did not contact McClatchy, and we have not checked any paper's current staff list. The advice in the last section is our own reading.

Conclusion

McClatchy's 10 September layoffs removed more than 90 journalists from papers across the country, and they fell on the beats that local companies, councils and institutions most often deal with: city hall, schools, accountability, sports. The company says it is aligning resources with what subscribers pay for; its unions point to its investment in AI and in new national lifestyle brands. For a company pitching local news, the practical consequences are immediate: check that the reporter still exists, send stories that need little work, watch for multiple versions of the same coverage, and treat the new AI-assisted brands as a different kind of outlet from the papers whose names they share.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

1. trade press Poynter, McClatchy cuts more than 90 staff in its most severe layoffs in years, 10 September 2026. Union estimates, McClatchy's notice to the guild, newsroom-level figures. Read 5 October 2026.
2. trade press Riddhi Setty, Columbia Journalism Review, McClatchy's Post-Layoff Future, 17 September 2026. NewsGuild count, union AI provisions, content scaling agent, Trend Hunter. Read 5 October 2026.
3. press Mark Keierleber, Straight Arrow News, Inside a newspaper chain's transformation from local news to AI-generated ‘content’, 17 September 2026. Content Innovation Lab hiring and job listings, Originality.ai estimates. Read 5 October 2026.
4. press John McCaa, The Dallas Morning News, AI behind the latest McClatchy newspaper cuts?, 1 October 2026 (opinion). Source for the Farmer memo, read secondhand. Read 5 October 2026.
5. press WMNF 88.5 FM, McClatchy layoffs could impact local journalism with cuts to Bradenton Herald staff, 2 October 2026. Read 5 October 2026.