NM Independent lays off four in restructuring

You may have already noticed this week that some bylines have disappeared from the news Web site the New Mexico Independent.

Four seasoned journalists who were part-time writers for the site — Barbara Armijo, Tim McGivern, Kate Nelson and Denise Tessier — are no longer writing for the site. That leaves seven employees at the Independent. (By way of disclosure, I’m one of them.)

The move was part of a larger wave of layoffs at each of the state sites owned by the nonprofit Center for Independent Media (CIM). In addition to New Mexico, the center has sites in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota. It also publishes the Washington Independent, but it’s not clear whether there were layoffs at that site.

Jefferson Morley, national editorial director for CIM, was quoted by PolitickerCO.com as saying that the decision to let the reporters go was due to the fact that “we’re in economic hard times.”

“We gotta plan for the future just like everybody else,” the Colorado news Web site quoted Morley as saying. “… We’re losing some really good journalists. We are very sorry that we can’t keep them. On the other hand, we’ve got a good core and we think we can build on the success we’ve had so far.”

But David S. Bennahum, CIM’s president and CEO, was quoted by PolitickerCO.com as saying that the reorganization was planned before the economic crisis. He said CIM plans to expand into several additional states in 2009, and has to “be lean, and I think this allows us to do that.”

Here’s the statement the New Mexico Independent published today from Bennahum:

“As we gear up for a new year, the Center for Independent Media is reorganizing in order to better fulfill our mission of impacting public debate and advancing the common good through quality journalism.

“We are streamlining operations with a more centralized editorial system to support the entire news network as it grows, with more full-time writers and fewer part-time writers. Our reorganization will allow us to deepen and strengthen coverage in the states we serve and lay the foundation for expansion to new states in 2009 and beyond.

“We are grateful to those talented and creative people who have helped us reach our goals thus far, and we look forward to continuing our history of excellence in journalism as we grow to meet the demands of the future.”

There’s been some controversy in Minnesota over the layoffs. You can read about it from MinnPost.com by clicking here and here, and the Twin Cities Daily Planet by clicking here and here.

The New Mexico Independent, which focuses its coverage on politics and public policy, began publishing in April. At the time, Managing Editor David Alire Garcia characterized its “main crusade” in a posting on the site as offering “an alternative, online source of information that’s fair to all sides and, most of all, tells the truth.”