The Quint is laying off several employees as part of a restructuring exercise that started last month and is set to discontinue its Hindi website from September 30.
In formal notices of separation to at least nine employees since last month, the news outlet referred to a restructuring of the organisation and said their full salary will be given until September 30, according to sources. It also referred to the possibility of them being granted a testimonial or reference through the HR department for the work they have done, Newslaundry has learnt.
Meanwhile, a separate note on the news outlet’s new content model, circulated among staff, referred to redundancies across several operations during the transition period, Newslaundry has learnt. It’s not clear if more layoffs will follow.
The note said that there was a need to reconfigure the content and revenue catchment of the website based on data insights gathered in the nine years that followed the portal’s inception. It hinted at a shift towards enterprise content, subscription-driven growth, a move away from commoditised content, and the allocation of more resources for its fact-checking platform Webqoof. It also said the YouTube channel of Hindi Quint will be retained while the Hindi website will be discontinued.
Speaking to Newslaundry, The Quint CEO Ritu Kapur indicated the outlet wants to focus more on quality journalism that drives revenue growth instead of content volume and search engine practices.
“We also understand that in today’s time it has become very difficult to get a job and even more difficult to make the revenue model successful. Quint had the largest team in the world of digital news, about 160-170 people. It had turned out to be very challenging to bring digital corporate revenue for such a large team.”
Kapur counted the government’s approach towards critical reportage, besides challenges to digital revenue, as a reason behind this rethink. “No organisation wants to remove such hardworking and capable people but we are also not left with a choice.”
She also said the English website will have a section for Hindi content.
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