CNN has informed staff members that it is permanently shutting down the opinion vertical on its news site.
The section is scheduled to be shut down on August 9.
Staff were alerted to the change by a brief email sent by an opinion editor who is seemingly out of a job.
“Just a quick note to let you know that unfortunately CNN has decided to shut down the opinion section,” an opinion editor sent in an email obtained by The Hill. “I hope our paths cross elsewhere!”
The email did not elaborate on the reason for the change and The Hill report did not identify the editor.
When reached for comment, a senior executive at CNN told The Hill, “We did make the decision at the beginning of the month to sunset the opinion vertical on CNN.com; as a result, we will no longer have a standalone Opinion section.”
The executive also linked the outlet to a Substack called The Media Mix by Claire Atkinson, which had more information about the section's demise.
The Substack article began, "The CNN team working on the news network’s Opinion output was let go today. The contributors and editors were gathered and informed that they would be terminated with an end date of August 9, according to people there."
"The move is part of a wider cost cutting measure announced this morning by CEO Mark Thompson who unveiled a broad global restructure of CNN’s content output across digital, video and TV," Atkinson wrote. "The restructure comes almost a year after Thompson took charge of the network after the disastrous term of his predecessor Chris Licht. Thompson is reviving subscription products launching later this year, after Licht executed a plan to shutter an earlier CNN streaming product conceived under former leader Jeff Zucker."
According to Media Mix, 100 staff members were let go.
"Thompson let go of 100 staff today as owner Warner Bros. Discovery goes about further cost reductions in order to pay off its $43 billion debt load and figure out a new approach as declines in linear viewing hit ad revenue," she wrote.
Atkinson added that the network is moving towards producing more video content and fewer articles.
