Christianity Today International laid off 30 employees last week, or about 25 percent of its workforce. Many of those who lost their jobs had been there throughout the 1990s, when I worked at CT in the Chicago suburbs (I’m now a contributing editor, which is an unpaid position).
The shocking announcement shows how deeply the recession and the Internet have impacted magazine publishing. In conjunction with the layoffs, CTI will stop publishing Today’s Christian Woman, only four months after announcing the demise of three other periodicals — Marriage Partnership, Today’s Christian and Ignite Your Faith (which barely had time to be renamed from Campus Life).
Earlier this month I attended the annual convention of the Evangelical Press Association. The publishing crisis is impacting virtually all Christian magazines: missions, denominational, devotional, general interest. Everyone knows the future is the Internet, but no one has figured out how to make up for the circulation and advertising revenue streams that are dwindling.
To survive, publications clearly will need to pool resources and cooperate in other ways as never before. Meanwhile, I hope the talented writers and editors out of work because of CTI’s across-the-board cuts can stay in the profession somehow.
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