Immediate Past President Gets Ax at Mercury News
The journalists laid off in the newsroom of the San Jose Mercury News Monday night and Tuesday morning include the immediate past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Veronica Villafañe, she confirmed on Tuesday.
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The 2007 NAHJ convention is to be held in San Jose, and Villafañe, who remains an ex-officio member of the NAHJ board, is convention co-chair.
Like other employees, Villafañe, an anchor and reporter for the Mercury News “convergence” arrangement with the local NBC affiliate, said she was told to wait by the phone to see if she was one of those who would be called and told they were on the layoff list.
The layoffs were immediate. Voicemail messages told callers that these employees no longer worked there, and e-mail messages to their Mercury News accounts bounced back.
“I’m really surprised and very disappointed that a newspaper that used to be of such quality has sunk to this level,” Villafañe told Journal-isms. “They needlessly terrorized everybody. Nobody knew who was going to get the ax. Is this really a good working atmosphere? My thoughts are with the people who were left behind.”
With Villafañe’s layoff, the turmoil in the newspaper industry has reached on a personal level the leadership of three of the journalist organizations of color. Bryan Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, lost his job earlier this year when his company, Knight Ridder, where he was assistant vice president/news, went out of business.
Esther Wu, president of the Asian American Journalists Association and columnist with the Dallas Morning News, was one of those taking a voluntary buyout at that paper. Her last day is Friday, and she was in discussions over whether her column would continue. Monroe landed in the newly created position of editorial director of Ebony and Jet magazines at the Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Co.
As Pete Carey reported Tuesday in the San Jose paper, “The Mercury News reached a tentative agreement with the San Jose Newspaper Guild on Monday for a two-year contract that significantly reduces the number of layoffs the newspaper was planning.
“Under the agreement, reached Monday morning after a 20-hour bargaining session, management will lay off up to 27.5 positions represented by the Guild, including 15 in the newsroom, rather than the 69 previously announced. The layoffs were set to happen Monday evening and this morning.”
The story quoted Luther Jackson, executive officer of the San Jose Newspaper Guild, saying, “I think we did the best we could in a very tough strategic environment.”
Last Wednesday, the Guild warned employees on what to expect:
“As soon as the calls are made, the company will cut off affected employees’ access to all Mercury News computer systems. At the HR sessions, the company will demand their employee badges, keys and any other Mercury News property. Any access to computer files after receiving the lay-off phone call must be made by request to a manager who can retrieve specific files requested by the employee. Any access to personal belongings in the plant must be arranged with HR and a manager will act as an escort. The company said it plans to give most laid-off employees access to their desks, with a manager present, on the weekend of Dec. 9 and 10.”
Villafañe said she was called by Susan Goldberg, the executive editor. She missed the call, “but technically, I could have sent myself an e-mail and found out that way,” Villafañe said, since the e-mail accounts had been adjusted to reply that the employee no longer worked there.
She said she knew of at least three other people of color who were laid off.
One was copy editor Cindy Liu, who told Journal-isms, “I’m pretty stunned—my reviews thus far have been positive, and I had been filling in as copy chief on occasion. . . . If you need a freelance copy editor or if you know of others who do, I’m suddenly very available!”
Villafañe’s job was to promote the next day’s Mercury News on the newscasts the NBC-11 nightly newscast in the Bay Area, and she did Webcasts and podcasts. She started out at the Mercury News nearly five years ago doing the television segment in English and Spanish.
“These employees are human beings who deserved respect,” said the current NAHJ president, Rafael Olmeda. “They all deserved better than this. As for Veronica, she is an exceptionally talented journalist and a proven leader. I have no doubt she will land on her feet.
“Veronica intends to continue serving as co-chair of the 2007 NAHJ convention in San Jose, and the Mercury News has confirmed it will honor part of the commitment made by the paper when it was still owned by Knight Ridder.”
MediaNews acquired the Mercury News from McClatchy Co. in August.
[Dec. 6 update: “Mercury News spokesman Dan Breeden said 10 workers—reporters, photographers, designers and copy editors—were cut from the newsroom and 25 from business offices. The Guild said the number of laid-off editorial workers was 16 and included some additional editorial assistants,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.]
