Vox Media laid off at least 12 staffers at Vox.com, the company's second round of cuts in about a month.
The company also announced new duties for its top leaders.
Vox Media faces challenges as digital advertisers move toward Big Tech platforms over news sites.
Vox Media laid off staff on Thursday for the second time in just over a month, this time at its general news site Vox.com.
Vox Media didn't specify the number of people let go but said several teams were impacted in what was a "difficult but necessary step as the industry evolves." The Writers Guild of America East, which represents the Vox newsroom, said the layoffs included 12 of its members. As of 2022, the Vox Media Union had 360 members across Vox Media sites.
Vox also announced a raft of C-suite leadership changes Wednesday. Pam Wasserstein was named copresident and vice chair of Vox Media. She'll continue to oversee New York, Vox, and Vox Media Studios. Revenue head Ryan Pauley was also named copresident, adding oversight for the lifestyle brands and the podcast business and production.
"These changes will create clearer focus, faster decision making, and increased executive capacity for tackling larger strategic questions," Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff wrote in a company email viewed by Business Insider. "This is particularly important given our complex, multi-brand environment."
In December, Vox laid off staff at its lifestyle titles Thrillist, PS (formerly Pop Sugar), and Eater and said that Thrillist would be operated by Eater going forward.
At the time, Bankoff said the company would focus on areas where it saw the most opportunity, including building direct audiences and its Vox Media Podcast Network. Vox Media also recently put its tech-focused property, The Verge, behind a paywall.
Vox Media grew out of the boom in digital media, raising more than $400 million from investors, including NBCUniversal General Atlantic. It styled itself as the Condé Nast of digital, with a collection of websites devoted to news and lifestyle topics. Its last funding round was in 2023 when it raised $100 million from Penske Media in a deal that made Penske the biggest shareholder with 20%, The New York Times reported.
As investor interest in digital media soured, Vox Media rolled up other properties including New York magazine, Group Nine Media, and NowThis, which it later spun off. Vox.com, the site of the most recent layoffs, focuses on news and politics.
Vox Media, along with many of its digital-media contemporaries, has faced challenges as digital advertisers flock to Big Tech platforms.
First-time buyers only accounted for 24% of US home purchases last year, a new report from Realtor.com found. That's the lowest rate since at least 1981, researchers noted on January 9, even though home affordability has improved significantly from its late-2023 lows.
Millions of millennials and Gen Zers hoping to buy homes and were shut out last year weren't alone.
Housing market transactions underwhelmed for a third straight year during a stalemate between aspiring buyers and sellers. Home prices drifted down in late 2024, but not enough for some buyers to feel like they were getting good value, given where mortgage rates were. And owners held out for renewed price growth since they didn't want to sell for less than their neighbors did.
National Association of Realtors
"Prices have been so sticky; they just stay where they are," said Joel Berner, an economic researcher at Realtor.com who co-authored the report with Danielle Hale, in a recent interview. "People have seen the house down the street a couple of years ago sold for $700,000. Why would I list mine for $600,000?"
Some housing market analysts think property prices will get a second wind, likely starting in the busier spring and summer months. Realtor.com's official forecast is for 3.7% price growth, though that's way slower than a few years ago. And in some markets, prices could keep falling.
"It takes time for people to adjust to the new normal, and so prices are finally starting to drop," Berner said.
Why not buying a home paid off last year
Although buying a house and building equity is a worthy aim, many young Americans may end up glad that they waited to sign on the dotted line.
Mortgage rates remained a major headache last year, even though they were below their peak. The Federal Reserve's plan to cut interest rates more slowly may keep many iced out of the market, though the consensus among real-estate observers is that borrowing costs will still fall.
In the meantime, those who've opted for apartments likely aren't breaking the bank. Rent growth has stagnated as inflation remained below 3%, and Realtor.com's research shows that rent has fallen for the last 16 months. Whether rent was flat or down, there was little rush to buy.
"Rents have been so soft in the last year that people look around and they say, 'Why would I pay a $3,000 mortgage payment when I can rent the same place for $1,500?'" Berner said.
It makes sense that young renters were reluctant to swap their reasonably priced leases for exorbitant mortgages, especially if there weren't many attractive options available. Home inventory has long been limited and is only now returning to pre-pandemic levels.
Realtor.com
Steadily rising home supply is one of the healthiest signs possible for the housing market. While Berner said this isn't a buyer's market quite yet, improved inventory could send it that way.
Opportunities abound for young buyers
While millions are looking for homes, Hale and Berner focused their report on younger buyers, specifically those born in the 1990s who were between the ages of 25 and 34 last year.
Those younger millennials and older Gen Zers may want to start their search on the East Coast, which is home to most of the 10 best cities for first-time buyers, according to Realtor.com.
Their methodology is based on factors like home prices, the local economy, and price growth history. The typical home in each of these markets is below the US median of $416,880 and is also considered affordable, meaning monthly payments are less than 30% of a buyer's income.
Three of these top markets for 25- to 34-year-olds are in Florida, two are in Western New York, and three others are in the Mid-Atlantic region. Only one city cited by Realtor.com was west of the Mississippi River: North Little Rock, Arkansas.
Realtor.com
"These larger, Eastern, older communities have a lot of things to offer," Berner said of the list. "They're well established; there's a lot of infrastructure, a lot of restaurants, a lot of daycares, etc. And the listing prices are pretty soft out there. So it's just kind of a good mix."
What's even more fascinating is which markets didn't make the list. So-called "Zoomtowns" that were trendy during the pandemic were absent, as were highly popular cities in Sun Belt states like North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Cities in California didn't come closer either.
Some of the hottest markets in recent years ranked well in previous renditions of this report, Berner said. If history repeats, young buyers who settle down in cities on this year's list will be glad they did since they'll see price appreciation in the years to come. And they also might be grateful that they didn't get suckered into a subpar deal last year.
"People saw the previous ones and they said, 'These are really good places to buy,' went and bought, and then those listing prices were up," Berner said. "We're kind of chasing our tail a little bit with things, trying to stay ahead of the market. And so it wouldn't surprise me next year if the list looks a whole lot different."
A Russian Su-34 bomber drops a glide bomb to strike Ukrainian positions in August 2024.
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP
Russian glide-bomb attacks against Ukraine are down compared to a few months ago.
Ukraine's long-range strikes on Russian airfields and ammunition depots helped to reduce the threat.
A Ukrainian soldier on the southern front said attacks are down by 70 percent compared to months ago.
Russia is carrying out fewer glide-bomb attacks on Ukraine compared to a few months ago, but the highly destructive weapons are still a severe threat to soldiers and civilians.
Factors behind the recent decrease in bombing runs include a string of Ukrainian drone strikes on airbases and ammunition storage facilities inside Russia during the summer and fall. Kyiv's forces are also getting better at defending against the glide bombs.
Russian aircraft have launched glide bombs at Ukraine throughout much of the war. The weapons are equipped with special kits converting dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions. They are quite difficult to intercept because they fly on non-ballistic trajectories, have small radar signatures, and have fairly short flight times.
Glide bombs come in various sizes, but among the larger is one weighing over 6,000 pounds that delivers tremendous destruction on impact.
A Ukrainian soldier fighting on the front lines in the south told Business Insider that glide bombs cause a lot of problems, but there has been a significant decrease in attacks since the summer.
A Russian glide bomb is seen mid-flight in July.
Russian Ministry of Defense/Screengrab via Telegram
Yuriy, a major in an electronic warfare unit of the Ukrainian National Guard, said that in his sector of the front, Russia has reduced the number of its attacks by around 70 percent compared to the summer.
He attributed the decrease to Ukraine's long-range strike campaign inside Russia. He also suggested that the presence of F-16 fighter jets, which made their combat debut for Kyiv last August, might be making Russian pilots hesitant to fly too close to the border.
The only way really for Ukraine to defeat glide bombs is to either shoot down the warplane before it releases the munition or strike the aircraft on the ground at its base. They can also destroy the ammunition stores.
During the summer and fall, Ukraine used domestically produced drones to carry out a string of high-profile attacks on Russian storage facilities where glide bombs were kept and airfields where the warplanes carrying them were based.
Ukraine has also benefitted from the Biden administration's decision to lift restrictions on Kyiv's use of American-made tactical ballistic missiles, known as ATACMS, in cross-border strikes. Ukrainian officials long argued more freedom in this space would allow them to threaten Russian airfields and reduce glide-bomb attacks.
Russian glide bombs are seen en route to their targets in August 2024.
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP
Yehor Chernev, the deputy chairman of Ukraine's parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence, explained to BI that Kyiv's strikes on the airfields forced Russia to move its tactical aviation deeper into the country and away from the front lines.
This campaign has led to a decrease in sortie rate — how often Russia can get its warplanes in the air to conduct the bombing missions — and has increased the detection time that Ukrainian forces have since the aircraft are approaching from farther out.
Chernev said that Ukraine has also been chipping away at the number of glide bombs in Russia's arsenal by targeting its ammunition depots.
But these strikes aren't a "magic tool," he said. The Russians can always build another storage depot to replace one that has been destroyed. Chernev said that while glide-bomb attacks are ultimately down, "it's still a problem for us because we cannot intercept these guided bombs."
Ukraine can, however, take actions short of interception. George Barros, the geospatial-intelligence team lead and a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told BI that Ukraine has gotten better at using electronic warfare to interfere with the Russian glide bombs, reducing their efficacy.
Firefighters put out a fire at an apartment building that was struck by a glide bomb in Kharkiv in August 2024.
AP Photo/Andrii Marienko
On the front lines in the eastern Donetsk region, Barros said that he's observed a correlation between the decrease in the glide-bomb attacks and the rate of Russian advances, which have slowed over the past month or two.
"The Russian forces there are very tired and very much attrited," he said, acknowledging that as a contributing factor.
But hindrances impacting Russia's ability to drop glide bombs on Ukraine, coupled with the decreased effectiveness of these weapons, "also tracks with the observation of the Russian rate of infantry advance," given that Moscow uses these munitions to support its ground forces, Barros said, adding that "these all sort of align in a mutually supporting way."
He emphasized that to prevent the glide-bomb threat from reemerging, the US and NATO need to continue arming Ukraine with long-range missiles so it can keep the pressure on Russia's airbases.
Despite an overall decrease in glide-bomb strikes, these weapons are still causing death and destruction across Ukraine. On Wednesday, Russia attacked the city of Zaporizhzhia with two munitions, killing over a dozen people and injuring more than 30, authorities said.
"This shows once again what Russia truly seeks," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said later that evening. "They want only war, and only victims."
All of the best and most interesting to new gear from CES 2025 is being collected for you right here. The latest in smart home advancements and display tech to the suite of AI features seemingly getting injected into just about all of it, and everything in between, we will be rounding up the most intriguing new reveals and prototypes as well as products you’ll actually be able to get your hands-on this year down below.
All of the best and most interesting to new gear from CES 2025 is being collected for you right here. The latest in smart home advancements and display tech to the suite of AI features seemingly getting injected into just about all of it, and everything in between, we will be rounding up the most intriguing new reveals and prototypes as well as products you’ll actually be able to get your hands-on this year down below.
Tim Cook says that he uses his Vision Pro every day. And in multiple interviews this past year, he’s mentioned a specific habit with the product that’s a big part of his use: lying down. After following his lead, I can now report that this method can (almost) fix the Vision Pro’s biggest problem.
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