March 5, 2008

More cutbacks for Capitol press corps

The number of reporters at Capitol press conferences continues to dwindle.

The latest round of newspaper cutbacks of Capitol coverage came as the Los Angeles Daily News announced closing its Sacramento bureau and the San Jose Mercury News’ Sacramento editor has taken a buyout and says more cuts are ahead.

Harrison Sheppard, a reporter for the LA Daily News, is returning to the paper’s office in Los Angeles, after the paper cut 22 staff positions and plans to close the Sacramento bureau. The 150,000 circulation paper, which also closed its Washington D.C. bureau, will now have 100 newsroom employees.

Sheppard said he will return to Los Angeles in the coming weeks, where he will have mix of editing and reporting duties. He'll continue to cover some "state news and politics" from Southern California, he said. He has worked in Sacramento since a couple of weeks into Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's governorship and has been with the Daily News since 1999.

Alvie Lindsay, the Sacramento editor of the San Jose Mercury News, took a recent buyout from the company and was still waiting for the deal to be officially accepted.

Lindsay said this was “clearly a very difficult time for newspapers in general.” When he arrived at the Merc in 2000, the paper had 400 newsroom employees, he said. After the latest round of cuts, the staff will drop to roughly 170 employees.

Both the Daily News and Mercury News are part of the Media New Group newspaper chain, owned by Dean Singleton.

Steve Maviglio at the California Majority Report first reported the departures.

Remaining in the MediaNews Sacramento bureau is Steve Harmon and Steve Geissinger of the Bay Area News Group, East Bay (which publishes the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times, among other papers) and Edwin Garcia, Mike Zapler and Kimberly Kindy of the San Jose Mercury News.

Lindsay said further cutbacks are expected. “It was always assumed that the staffing up here would be reduced beyond that,” he said. Lindsay said at least one, if not both, of the non-Mercury News positions in Sacramento was expected to be eliminated.

Note: The original version of this post said Steve Harmon works for the Contra Costa Times and Steve Geissinger works for the Oakland Tribune. In fact, as the post now reads, they both work for the Bay Area News Group, East Bay.

Posted by Shane Goldmacher on March 5, 2008 11:19 AM