Newspapers throughout the Central Valley have been hit with substantial layoffs by the McClatchy Media Company, including the Sacramento Bee and the Fresno Bee. McClatchy was acquired out of bankruptcy by the hedge fund Chatham Asset Management in 2020. The firm is known for reorganizing companies by reducing the workforce. Part of this reduction involves increasing the use of artificial intelligence on McClatchy’s newspapers and digital platforms.
When the Fresno Bee was purchased by Chatham Asset Management, newspapers were in financial crisis across the country. But when the holding company acquired the legacy newspaper, it underscored its commitment to strong local journalism. Since then, the Bee has gone from a daily paper to three days a week, along with a digital platform. Joshua Tehee is a veteran Fresno Bee writer and a leader of the Bee News Guild, the paper’s union. He says the staff cuts are deep, up to 40%, and will hurt local reporting.
“Here in town, we lost an accountability reporter, we lost a civic watchdog reporter, a city hall reporter. We have a reporter that was covering Clovis. So it’s definitely going to be felt. And it’s one of those things that I think these positions, once they’re gone, it’s going to be very, very hard to get them back.”…