THE BOSTON GLOBE hired three people this spring to launch a new weekly podcast, but the news organization scrapped that plan in July and is now scrambling to find new jobs for the employees.
The sudden policy shift prompted unease in the Globe’s newsroom and its union, but wasn’t widely addressed by management until a virtual monthly town hall on Monday of all Boston Globe Media personnel.
In response to submitted questions from staff, Linda Henry, the CEO and co-owner of the Globe, said the turnabout on podcasts was driven by the realization that audio journalism may be compelling but does not attract subscribers. Henry called paid subscriptions the “North Star goal” of the for-profit business, according to several Globe employees who attended the town hall.
Henry said the company has made strategic investments in expanding geographically – with special Globe bureaus in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, the latter of which has a weekly podcast of its own. Further, Henry told staff the company is also expanding formats with a television show and “video journalism on our site every single day.”
Those products, she said, are correlating with paid digital subscribers. Not so for podcasts.
Three experienced radio and podcast journalists were hired between March and June, specifically for a planned weekly Globe podcast, according to multiple sources who requested anonymity.
At the start of April, the Globe posted a position for an “experienced audio producer to capture some of the best of our journalism and help shape the Globe’s future in podcasting.”
“This role is integral to the Globe’s ambition to build on the success of shows like Gladiator (about Aaron Hernandez), Last Seen (a true-crime series partnering with WBUR), and Love Letters (the advice column),” the posting read. The Globe had recently done a full multi-media blitz for a special “Murder in Boston” series on the Charles Stuart case – including deeply reported print pieces, a companion podcast, and an HBO tie-in series.
The full-time producer post was “based in Boston, and candidates should be based in the area or willing to move.”
The final hires quit their former jobs, packed up their bags and pets, and schlepped to Boston from across the country or prepared to make the move. In late July, however, Globe management communicated that the organization would not be moving forward with the project after all.
Technically, the decision fell within the Globe’s half-year contractual probationary period in which a new employee can be terminated at any time without cause. Instead, the company is working to find alternative posts for the new hires, according to Globe management at the town hall.
A Globe spokesperson declined to comment. “The company does not comment on personnel matters,” the spokesperson said.
Editor Nancy Barnes told town hall attendees that the staff person hired to host and produce the new podcast would instead be assigned as the writer of a new flagship newsletter – which had a co-writer job posting up in late July – scheduled to launch this fall. The other two impacted audio team members will be paid at their agreed rate through September until they can find alternative jobs in the newsroom.
The Globe is currently hiring for a handful of reporter and digital producer roles.
According to several who watched the town hall, Henry and Barnes zeroed in on evolving dynamics within the journalism industry tilting away from audio products.
The great podcast boom of the 2010s hit choppy waters over the next decade, prompting the common jest that everyone and their brother had somehow become podcasters. True crime proliferated, pop culture offerings blossomed, and chatty political analysis turned into podcasting empires across partisan lines.
A slump followed, resulting from a saturated podcast market, advertiser demands, and several digital news companies going bust. Optimism about the podcast world bloomed again in July, insufficiently for the Globe audio team.
Emotions surrounding the Globe podcast chop are mixed. Several staff and union members expressed some relief that the company made an effort to help the three employees find landing spots when the jobs they moved for were cut.
Yet there is still general confusion about what happened between June and July in podcast math that called for eliminating the jobs of the three new recruits. The Globe will preserve a two-person audio team, expected to focus more on short-term special projects like the “Murder in Boston” exploration.
In closing, Barnes reportedly offered assurances that the future of Globe audio is not all out to pasture. Audio integration into stories will still be a priority, as will collections of best-of-the-Globe audio storytelling. The opinion section, which is run separately from the newsroom, “remains committed” to business columnist Shirley Leung’s podcast “Say More.”
But for now, when it comes to long-term Globe podcasting decisions and explanations, the company position seems to be “say less.”
