The media giant has let go of the teams focusing on marginalized communities.
NBC News is eliminating its reporting of Black, Asian American, Latino, and LGBTQ+ communities as part of a layoff plan that affected around 150 staffers on Wednesday.
As The Wrap first reported, NBC News’ executive vice president of editorial, Catherine Kim, made the announcement to staffers in a meeting. The downsizing comes as the Peacock network parts ways with its sister news outlet, MSNBC.
The layoffs represent roughly 7 percent of the network’s newsroom staff of about 2,000.
While the entire teams of the marginalized verticals are being dissolved, the verticals will continue to publish stories related to the specific groups and NBC News may ultimately retain up to five staffers who will contribute coverage on the verticals to the newsroom, according to one source.
The cuts are also attributed to the spinoff of cable networks MSNBC and CNBC, per the LA Times. As of last week, NBC News no longer shares resources with the two outlets, which will become part of a new company called Versant. Some NBC News veterans have decided to join MSNBC, which will be renamed MS NOW.
Versant is the new stand-alone home for most of Comcast’s cable networks, including USA Network, the Golf Channel, CNBC and MSNBC.
NBC has encouraged laid‑off employees to apply for about 140 open roles across its news operations.