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Another one bites the dust
Glen Martin, one of the best environmental reporters in California, has written his last story for the San Francisco Chronicle. Glen was one of EWG's favorite journalists. He dug deep into our Farm Subsidies Database and found that billionaire stockbroker Charles Schwab received more than half a million dollars in 2000 – for a rice farm he used as a private duck-hunting club. He reported on a secret chemical industry memo we obtained that outlined a scheme to spy on California activists. He got a story on the front page about our tests that found rocket fuel in California milk. And his stories on our investigation of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal water subsidies to the Central Valley Project were just part of his authoritative coverage of the state's water wars.
Like most reporters, Glen griped about his bosses and his business, but he loved his work. He's leaving not for The New York Times or The Washington Post, but because the Chronicle is slashing its newsroom by 100 positions – a fourth of the staff. Glen took a buyout package offered by management, but if not enough staff members accept a deal, involuntary layoffs will follow.
I'm not here just to tip a hat to Glen. All over the country, newspapers (and other newsgathering organizations) are reeling from the rapid exodus of readers and advertisers from print to the Internet. The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Denver Post, The Dallas Morning News and many more big papers are cutting staff and budgets under pressure from their corporate owners to maintain the absurdly high profit margins demanded by Wall Street. But the Chronicle, the largest newspaper in the region with the most 'Net-wired audience in the country, is reportedly losing $8 million a month, as ever-growing chunks of its audience get their news online and use Craigslist for classified ads.