Those Wired Digital Layoffs: The Facts

One of the nice things about being a gossip columnist, as opposed to a journalist, is that you can trade in rumors while they are hot.

Starting mid-week, I followed closely headlines like  Wired.com ‘Gutted’ in Conde Layoffs. Bad news travels fast, especially online, and even faster when it involves media sites that cover other media sites.

The only problem in this case is the “news” wasn’t true. According to sources I trust, exactly three people lost their jobs — a copy editor and a designer were let go, and managing editor Leander Kahney took a buyout offer in order to pursue a possible book project.

All of this occurred in the context of a broad Condenet restructuring. Larger cuts were made at Ars Technica, for example, according to New York-based bloggers.

Out on the left coast, speculation that Wired editor Chris Anderson protected his magazine staff at the expense of online staff was dead wrong, according to knowledgeable sources.

None of which is to diss my gossipy friends or the service they provide to the rest of us. They prove to be right far more often than not, and I, for one, love to read them. But if I don’t always join their party for three, four days, you’ll know why… I’m out doing the grunt work, trying to parse what’s true from what isn’t.

(Tired disclosure: I worked at Wired Digital from 1995-’7.)