[THEDAILYBEAST] Newsweek on Monday fired all of its top staff amid turmoil that has upended the newsroom.In a company meeting, several editors announced that the outlet had fired Editor in Chief Bob Roe, Executive Editor Ken Li and news hounds Celeste Katz, Josh Saul, and International Business Times editor Josh Keefe.
The editors told staffers some of the firings were not official, but according to one person with direct knowledge, both Katz and Keefe were locked out of their work email and computer accounts and instructed to meet a human-resources representative offsite shortly after Roe was fired.
Newsweek also sent staff home for the day.
Though the editors did not elaborate on why the top staff left the company, three staffers who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity pointed out that Li, Katz, Saul, and Keefe had all published pieces reporting on the company’s recent troubles.
The legacy news magazine (which was previously owned by IAC, The Daily Beast’s parent company) has been rocked by turnover since it was reported that Manhattan law-enforcement officials were investigating the company’s finances. Manhattan District Attorney’s office agents raided the company’s headquarters last month, and seized more than a dozen of the company’s servers.