The New York Times is disbanding its sports department, a team of more than 35 journalists and editors. For both online and print, the paper will instead rely on sports coverage from The Athletic, which the New York Times bought for $550 million in January 2022. The decision from The Times marks “an evolution in how we cover sports,” executive editor Joe Kahn and deputy managing editor Monica Drake wrote in an email Monday to staffers. Members of the New York Times Guild said in a statement late Monday afternoon they “will fight this flagrant attempt at union-busting with every tool we have.”“Times leadership is attempting to outsource union jobs on our sports desk to a non-union Times subsidiary under the preposterous argument that The Times can ‘subcontract’ its sports coverage to itself,” the statement NYT Guild members read. The Athletic is not unionized, but a union represents the Times’ newsroom.

Source: New York Times July 10, 2023 18:16 UTC