Wired.com lays off 12 percent of staff
Eliot Van Buskirk, who authored the well-known digital music blog ListeningPost, is among those who lost their jobs.
For the second time in five months, Wired.com, the Internet arm of Wired magazine, has trimmed its staff.
According to a Twitter post from Evan Hansen, the Web site's editor in chief, the company laid off 3 out of 25 full-time staffers or 12 percent of its workforce.
"Reports of Wired.com 'gutting' greatly exaggerated," Hansen wrote on Twitter, presumably referring to published reports about Wired.com's layoffs. "We cut three staff, five contractors, (and) still have 45 people working for us overall."
Among those who lost their jobs was Eliot Van Buskirk, a much respected digital music reporter who authored the blog ListeningPost for the Web site for over three years, according to multiple people within the company. Van Buskirk was a part-time contractor for Wired and is a former CNET employee. Leander Kahney, Wired.com's managing editor, also lost his job, but he requested that he be let go, the sources said.
In November, Wired.com laid off 10 percent of its staff. Wired magazine was once a must-read for the cybergroovy but has since had to contend, like all print publishers, with more competition from online sources of technology stories.