Recent layoffs at ABC News were not business as usual, some staffers say. “It feels personal,” an insider told Page Six.
ABC News president Kim Godwin announced layoffs at the network last month — and multiple sources told us it was a form of payback to people she thought were leaking stories about her at the network.
“They’re targeting people to figure out who’s leaking, and the layoffs are a part of it. They’re trying to make an example of them,” a source believes.
The cost-cutting move was part of parent Disney’s plan to cut 7,000 jobs.
Several senior execs were included in the 50 workers whom ABC News will let go. Some suspected that Godwin was targeting “people she thought were not on her team, or people she suspected either wanted her job or [were] trying to take her down,” another source said.
The names of axed staffers subsequently ended up in media reports almost immediately after they were given their pink slips.
“It was like a ‘This is a nail in your coffin’ type of thing. All of the people that are gone are the people who she suspected weren’t her supporters and fans,” the second source speculated.