The New Yorker Drops Andy Borowitz’s Satire Column Amid Cutbacks
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Humorist and writer Andy Borowitz has gotten the axe from the New Yorker after 25 years of writing for the magazine, as part of a larger wave of cost-cutting and layoffs at parent Condé Nast.
Borowitz announced that the New Yorker was dropping his long-running Borowitz Report satire features because of “its financial difficulties.”
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In a post on Facebook, Borowitz wrote, “IF I MAY BE SERIOUS: Because of its financial difficulties, The New Yorker has been forced to cut costs. As a result, it has decided to stop publishing The Borowitz Report. I want to thank my colleagues at The New Yorker who have made writing for it such an honor for the past 25 years. And I want to thank you, my readers, for your incredible enthusiasm and support. You’re the reason I do what I do, and when I figure out what I want to do next, you’ll be the first to know. Love, Andy.”
The New Yorker confirmed it has ended its deal with Borowitz. In a statement, a spokesperson for the publication said, “Andy Borowitz has been making us laugh for decades with his many and varied contributions to the New Yorker and we are immensely grateful for that. For years, we’ve had the pleasure and privilege of publishing the Borowitz Report, which has helped our readers — and all of us — find levity in particularly dark times. We know that Andy will keep cracking us up in new and surprising ways for a long time to come.”
The publication’s cancelation of the Borowitz Report comes as parent company Condé Nast in November said it would lay off upwards of 300 employees, representing 5% of total headcount, and take other cost-reduction measures.
Among Borowitz’s final pieces for the New Yorker are “George Santos to Spend More Time with Imaginary Family,” “Ivanka Unable to Remember Name of Her Father” and “Clarence Thomas Collapses from Exhaustion After First Full Day of Regulating Himself.”
Borowitz is a New York Times best-selling author and a comedian who had written for the New Yorker since 1998. In 2001, he created The Borowitz Report, a satirical news column that has millions of readers around the world, for which he won the first-ever National Press Club award for humor. The Borowitz Report was acquired by the New Yorker in 2012. His two most recent books were both best-sellers: “The 50 Funniest American Writers,” which became the first title in the history of the Library of America to make the Times best-seller list; and a memoir, “An Unexpected Twist,” a No. 1 best-seller, which Amazon named the Best Kindle Single of 2012.
As a comedian, Borowitz has performed sold-out shows around the world and has made numerous TV and radio appearances, including on NPR, VH1 and Comedy Central. His solo comedy show, Make America Not Embarrassing Again, toured across the U.S. from 2018 to 2020.
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