I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
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Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Apparently, three layoffs and weeklong, unpaid furloughs for all employees weren’t enough. The company that owns the Las Cruces Sun-News now plans to move the newspaper’s copy desk to the El Paso Times in Texas, eliminating two jobs in the process.
The move, announced to Sun-News employees on Tuesday, is the latest sign of the struggles the newspaper industry faces in New Mexico and across the country. The first Sun-News layoffs came earlier this month, and the companywide furloughs were designed to make ends meet in the first quarter for the Denver-based MediaNews Group, which is the owner or majority stakeholder in nine New Mexico papers, including the Sun-News. It’s also the majority stakeholder in the El Paso paper.
The Sun-News copy desk — responsible for copy editing of articles, page layout and design — currently has six staffers. Four will be offered jobs at the El Paso newspaper, while two positions will be eliminated, sources confirmed. There are a couple of openings at other MediaNews papers in New Mexico, so it’s possible that every affected employee will still have a job at the end of the transition, which is expected to be finalized in early May.
The Deming Headlight and Silver City Sun-News were already being produced by the copy desk in Las Cruces, so both of those papers will join the Las Cruces Sun-News in being produced in El Paso.
The move is a major shift as the newspaper industry struggles to adapt to the Internet and the sinking economy. Earlier this month, three east-side New Mexico papers owned by Freedom Communications Inc. also announced weeklong, unpaid furloughs for all employees. And the Las Vegas Optic went from a daily newspaper to one that publishes three days a week.
New Mexico has been no stranger to newspaper cuts in recent years. It has lost the Albuquerque Tribune and the Lordsburg Liberal, and several other papers, including the Albuquerque Journal and Santa Fe New Mexican, have cut positions. MediaNews also eliminated its capitol bureau a few years ago.
Around the nation, several major newspaper companies have declared bankruptcy in recent months, and some newspapers, including the Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, have shut down or are in the process of becoming online-only publications.
