CNN is experiencing a tsunami of cuts.
On Tuesday Christiane Amanpour‘s entire staff in New York was laid off as was the LA bureau’s entertainment division, including an LA news producer, Lindy Hall. What’s more: HLN’s Jane Valez-Mitchell’s program was canceled. All in all: 50 jobs. Gone.
“The changes this week are difficult yet necessary,” Allison Gollust said in an email to Mashable, which reported the news of the Amanpour layoffs earlier today. “Out of respect for our colleagues directly impacted, we won’t be commenting on specific people or programs.”
Stay tuned for more expected firings Wednesday, The Mirror is told.
“There are some angry people,” a source with knowledge of the firings said.
UPDATE: Also cut was Darius Walker, CNN VP and NY-Northeast Bureau Chief. He was with the company since 2001. Before working in New York, Walker was the senior director of newsgathering for CNN’s Washington, D.C., bureau.
UPDATE: A CNN publicist writes in to say that Christiane’s staff in London, where she is based, is intact. Her staff is in London where she is based (since summer of 2013). “She had a skeleton staff in NY and those were the individuals affected by Turner 2020. We’re talking less than a handful. Nothing changes for Christiane on CNN or CNN International. Her show is still on daily.”
