National Geographic on Wednesday, June 28, laid off its remaining staff writers. The 135-year-old Washington-based magazine is a legend in the world of science and the natural world publications. This is the fourth round of layoffs here since 2015 and the second in the last nine months. Nineteen editorial writers lost their jobs yesterday. NatGeo owner Walt Disney Company had notified them in April that the layoffs were coming, as per The Washington Post. Disney also removed six top editors in a revamp of the magazine's editorial operations.The company said its future editorial work will be done by freelance writers and the few editors remaining on staff. The famous bright-yellow-bordered print publication, which had more than 1.7 million subscribers at the end of 2022, will continue to publish monthly issues, a magazine spokesperson told CNN in a statement.
“Staffing changes will not change our ability to do this work, but rather give us more flexibility to tell different stories and meet our audiences where they are across our many platforms,” the spokesperson said. “Any insinuation that the recent changes will negatively impact the magazine, or the quality of our storytelling, is simply incorrect.”However, in an internal announcement made last month, the company said the magazines will no longer be sold on newsstands in the US, from next year onwards.“It’s been an epic run, @NatGeo. My colleagues and I were unbelievably lucky to be the last-ever class of staff writers—certainly the coolest job I’ll ever have, and possibly among the coolest to ever exist,” Nina Strochlic, a writer at NatGeo wrote on Twitter.