The father or mother firm of Outdoors journal has laid off 20 members of the journal’s editorial and enterprise staffs, leaving doubt concerning the ongoing viability of the publication in print and on-line. The information got here in a companywide e-mail final Thursday from CEO Robin Thurston saying the acquisition of Inntopia, journey reserving software program utilized by Vail, Alterra Mountain Firm, and others. Workers affected by the mass firing mentioned one print editor and three on-line editors stay. Those that misplaced their jobs embody longtime prime editor Chris Keyes, thirty-year veteran and head of sustainability Kristin Hostetter, and model director Mary Turner.
Robin Thurston didn’t reply on to a request for remark, however a member of Outdoors’s exterior public relations agency emailed this assertion:
“With the acquisition of Inntopia, we determined to restructure a few of our editorial staff to permit our out of doors vertical consultants to personal their classes throughout your complete platform. Specializing in classes like Snow, Biking, Mountaineering + Tenting, Wellness, MTB, Tri/Run, Climbing, and Meals + Health permits our content material creators to contribute their experience throughout our portfolio and develop important areas of viewers engagement like video, mapping, and our exercise feed platform. Our editorial staff throughout the entire Outdoors Inc. manufacturers stays one in every of our largest teams of full-time staff, along with freelancers and contributors who assist our beloved content material and storytelling. Final week’s layoffs impacted 20 people throughout the Editorial, Product, Advertising, Gross sales, and Finance groups, eight of which had been native to Colorado.”
Thurston did remark to A Media Operator, which covers on-line publishing. He mentioned, “Many individuals come to our properties, they need to know the place to go, proper? They need to know what to do. If we write a narrative concerning the prime 5 ski resorts in North America, we don’t information you after that into the journey reserving. We simply type of say, ‘Hey, right here’s some nice data from a journey author, good luck by yourself, go discover tips on how to ebook that. Go discover the ski teacher. Go determine tips on how to purchase tickets.’”
Thurston additionally instructed AMO he plans to take the corporate public in three to 4 years.
Backed by enterprise capital, Thurston’s Pocket Media purchased three divisions from Lively Curiosity Media in 2020 (together with Backpacker, SKI, Climbing, and different titles) after which bought Outdoors from longtime proprietor Larry Burke in 2021. It additionally purchased Pinkbike, Gaia mapping service, and quite a few outdoor-recreation publications. Since then, it has funneled editorial content material into subscription-based Outdoors+ and gone by way of two earlier rounds of main layoffs.
This latest spherical of layoffs has left staff reeling. These we spoke to had been granted anonymity to talk candidly. Many are negotiating their severance; the one provided by the corporate was “weak,” mentioned one.
Positions that had been eradicated embody the vice chairman and basic supervisor of Open air, the VP of information and analytics, senior model director, editor in chief, managing editor, three senior editors, two affiliate editors, assistant editor, senior picture editor, and group artistic director. Different enterprise aspect layoffs embody the director of gross sales operations, director of website positioning, affiliate director, technical advert ops, social media analyst, and digital manufacturing senior supervisor.
UPDATE, 02.12.25
A spokesperson responded:
Replace from Outdoors, 2.12.25
- “Is it correct to say Outdoors shouldn’t be presently provided in print?”
- No. Print shouldn’t be going away. Quite the opposite. Our circulation for the present Nov/Dec subject of Outdoors is 675,000. We’re presently printing the Spring 2025 subject, which might be on newsstands on March 1st. The summer season subject, which comes out in late Could, will current the redesigned, reimagined Outdoors which can broaden the lens of the journal.
- “Workers affected by the mass firing mentioned one print editor and three on-line editors stay.”
- Incorrect.
- “Our editorial staff consists of over 60 full-time content material creators & contributors, which embody editors, writers, videographers and photographers that can proceed producing content material for our digital and print content material.
- The present editorial director of our way of life manufacturers, Mary-Frances Heck, will change into Normal Supervisor, Outdoors Media and Enterprise Progress, overseeing all of our digital editorial properties. Mary-Frances’ background at way of life media corresponding to Dotdash Meredith uniquely positions her to steer Outdoors’s digital and print content material groups into the longer term.”
