Staffers at The New York Times gathered in front of the company's headquarters in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, protesting against the top management's plan to reduce copy editors.

In a memo to staff last month, Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Joe Kahn announced they planned to lay off half of the current 100-strong copy desk in order to "shift the balance of editors to reporters."

Their uncertain future this week finally got copy editors to stand up from their desks and walk out. During the 15-minute action, at least 100 employees – editors but also other colleagues – chanted "They say cutbacks, we say fight back" and held up signs, including purposely misspelled ones, saying "This sign wsa not edited," "Copy editors save our buts" and "Our editors make the Times, the Times."

A source at The Times told US media outlet Poynter: "Top managers sat stone-faced at desks as staffers gathered about them and then walked out via the stairways." 

The editors and reporters sent an open letter to Baquet and Kahn on Wednesday expressing their disappointment over the decision to downsize and their concerns over the future copy editing process at The New York Times.

Editors also asked the top management in the letter to reduce the number of employees they planned to lay off.

"We worry that if we do not speak out, you will feel emboldened to make similarly sweeping staff reductions elsewhere in the company without debate. We worry that the errors and serious breaches of Times standards that copy editors catch each day will go unnoticed – until we are embarrassed into making corrections. We worry, in short, that the newsroom has forgotten why these layers of editing were created in the first place. But we still believe in The Times," the letter read.

Later the same day, Baquet and Kahn responded in an open letter that they "are not, as we have said repeatedly, eliminating copy editing" but "in fact eliminating a free standing copy desk" without giving the respect the editors asked for.

"A majority of people currently employed by the copy desk will find new editing jobs. All of our desks will continue to ensure a high level of editing, spanning backfielding, copy editing, photo editing and digital and print production, for all the journalism we produce," Baquet and Kahn said, without however giving more detailed plans.

As a response, the editors announced Thursday morning that they would take "a collective coffee break" in the afternoon.