A media company is expanding its newsroom. You read that right.
The Atlantic plans to add as many as 100 employees to its staff over the next 12 months, its president, Bob Cohn, told employees during a staff meeting on Wednesday. The hirings will represent a 30 percent increase in personnel at the publication, with half the jobs going to newsroom employees.
“We have great ambitions to grow The Atlantic and make it better and these are the ways we think we can do it,” Mr. Cohn said in an interview on Tuesday.
The ramping up comes six months after Emerson Collective, an organization run by the philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, acquired a majority stake in The Atlantic.
The Atlantic’s decision to go on a hiring spree is surprising at a time when legacy publications and recently established websites alike are cutting costs and shedding employees. The announcement of the hires came on a day when Vox Media said it would lay off some 50 staff members, with most of those targeted working in the social video departments at Racked, Curbed and SB Nation. The Vox Media move occurred, not coincidentally, after Facebook recalibrated its News Feed to drive less traffic to content produced by professional news organizations.