The Bee is eliminating its Public Editor position, and will move Armando Acuna to a features position, according to a memo from Bee publisher Cheryl Dell. Romenesko has the memo.... Effective September 1, Armando Acuna will move from the position of public editor into a new role as associate features editor in the newsroom.Armando Acuna was ill-suited to a position that requires him to connect with subscribers. Acuna has a Gate-Keeper mentality, believing news is doled out to the masses when the smart media elites decide it's time.
We are making this change as part of our ongoing restructuring, a process that has involved a constant focus on our mission and the priorities that serve that mission.
The public editor role has been a valuable part of The Bee's operation for several decades. Armando has excelled in the job since 2005, and the change reflects in no way on his performance. Instead, the decision acknowledges several realities, the most pressing being our company's need to focus our resources on newsgathering, advertising sales and customer service. We are examining every position with an eye on these priorities.
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Acuna's lowest moment: unloading in print on a 78-year old subscriber who complained about The Bee's coverage of the news. Second lowest moment: defending The Bee for not reporting the drop in violence Iraq in late 2007.
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"We are making this change as part of our ongoing restructuring, a process that has involved a constant focus on our mission and the priorities that serve that mission."
Seems across the board McClatchy has lost sight of it's mission. No commitment to it's community reader base. Enough of the on line paper, stop pulling out of the communities and leaving hundreds of unemployed standing in the EDD lines. McClatchy has the (almost) perfect venue for closing down it's papers. They can control the damage within it's own pages. Bury the lay off stories on D-3, and carefully word the story so it doesn't really sound as bad as it really is.
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