Layoffs, Payroll Woes Plague 'Latina'

Another big magazine targeting an ethnic audience is having a rocky transition under new management.

This time it is Latina, which finds itself forced to cut staff while struggling to meet payroll and deal with unpaid invoices from angry freelancers. The news was first reported by the New York Post, citing unnamed staffers at Latina Media Ventures.

Last week, LMV cut six staffers from a total of 30 employees, following reports that staff hadn’t been paid in over a month. Staffers were finally paid for the first half of June, but are still awaiting paychecks for the second half of the month, NYP reports.

As always, freelancers are last in line, with some still waiting to be paid for invoices filed up to six months ago. Some of the freelancers are owed more than $10,000, per the same anonymous source.

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The publisher’s troubles come amid a sudden management shakeup.

In mid-June, former president Brett Wright resigned. Around the same time, the company told employees it would miss payroll. LMV owner Solera Capital promoted two of the company’s employees, Robyn Moreno and Asten Morgan, to serve as “co-presidents” replacing Wright.

In a previous memo to staff, Latina’s management blamed a “miscommunication” between Solera and LMV for the missed payroll. Some subscribers also complained that delivery of the most recent magazine issue had been delayed.

Latina isn’t the only big ethnic title facing financial woes.

Earlier this year, Ebony laid off most of the magazine’s Chicago staffers, effectively spelling the end of publishing operations there. It's all part of a transition to new headquarters in Los Angeles, following the magazine's sale by Johnson Publishing.

In June 2016, after publishing Ebony and Jet for seven decades, Johnson Publishing sold the titles to Texas-based Clear View Group, an African American-owned private-equity firm (Jet, a weekly news, opinion, culture and lifestyle magazine, moved to a digital-only publication in 2014).

In April, Ebony became the target of a social-media movement by disgruntled freelancers. They took to Twitter to complain it was late in paying contributors. The magazine’s management vowed to pay freelancers. However, in mid-June, the National Writers Union claimed the magazine still owed its freelancers more than $200,000.

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