Houston Landing’s CEO Peter Bhatia had taken a break from the office when E&P spoke with him by phone on Wednesday. It was a tough day in a series of them — for Bhatia, certainly for two members of the newsroom who’d been unexpectedly laid off on Monday and for the entire Landing team reeling from the ouster of their colleagues, Editor-in-chief Mizanur Rahman and Staff/Investigative Reporter Alex Stuckley.
Bhatia qualified the tenor of the office as “in revolt.”
The confusion was understandable. Both journalists have remarkable careers under their belts. Rahman was previously editor of The Virginian-Pilot and metro editor at The Dallas Morning News. Prior to Houston Landing, he served in various editor roles at the Houston Chronicle.
Stuckey came to Houston Landing by way of the Houston Chronicle, too. She is an award-winning journalist who was recognized with the 2022 Livingston Award. She also won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 while reporting on rapes at Utah colleges for The Salt Lake Tribune.
E&P reached out to Rahman — as well as several other remaining team members — but did not receive comments by deadline.
Rahman and Stuckey publicly shared their reactions and dismay on X (formerly Twitter).
Poynter, Nieman Lab and Texas Monthly picked up the story. On Tuesday, Texas Monthly’s senior editor, Michael Hardy, posted to X/Twitter the text of a letter to the Landing’s board of directors, co-signed by the newsroom, demanding transparency about the staffing decision. They’d shared a copy with Bhatia, as well.
In E&P’s first email exchange with Bhatia, he clarified it had nothing to do with budgetary concerns; instead, he made the decision, in a way, because of platform. Houston Landing is exclusively a digital brand.
Digital platform necessitates multimedia content.
Hired by Houston Landing’s former CEO, Rahman was editor-in-chief before Bhatia took the helm.
“He’s a really good journalist,” Bhatia described Rahman. “He’s a fantastic human being. I liked working with him a lot. But ultimately, we are a digital startup that has to thrive in the digital space. We’re not putting out a newspaper. I spent weeks, months thinking about that and having conversations with him. Over the holidays, I just came to the realization that if we’re going to truly achieve what we have to accomplish in the digital space and be something different, taking advantage of all digital gives us — all the tools and techniques we can use — I had to make a change. Not because he's not a good editor, not because he's not a good journalist. Not because he's not a good guy but because I needed somebody in the editor's chair who fully embraces what digital can do.
“What we’ve been doing — and doing well — is putting out a newspaper on a website, and that’s not the formula for sustainability,” he said.
Bhatia’s explanation centered on a lack of storytelling innovation and an audience that demands more than just well-sourced and courageous journalism. They want it communicated in new ways — with multimedia, including data-driven graphics, video and audio.
So, what about product? Chief Product Officer Mitesh Vashee — whom E&P interviewed as part of an August 2023 profile — remains part of the team.
“Product is part of it,” Bhatia said. “In the digital space, the editor has to be a full partner with product, audience and events.”
Houston Landing’s managing editor, John Tedesco, was named interim editor-in-chief. He also took to Twitter to express his concerns about the newsroom’s future.
After an award-winning career as a journalist and editor, this is Bhatia’s first leadership role on the business side, and he’s looking at their model through a sustainability lens. Audience, impact and engagement must be measurable and demonstrable to donors, from large philanthropic entities to individual supporters and readers. Bhatia feels a change in publishing strategy will be more compelling to the public and the people likely to fund the organization moving forward.
Bhatia said he’s actively pursuing editor-in-chief candidates.
Asked about the decision to part ways with Alex Stuckey, Bhatia said, “Alex is a great reporter and a huge, fun and interesting personality like many accomplished investigative reporters. But … investigative reporting has to change and embrace the digital space, just like any other reporting."
E&P spoke with Stuckey on Thursday evening. She contested Bhatia’s assertion that she didn’t have digital chops. “You can read the descriptions in my stories that talk about how much data I’ve gone through for my projects. You can read my previous reporting elsewhere, that will tell you that I am a very strong data reporter,” she said.
“I am a very strong data reporter. I would say one of my stories this year does have video on it,” she continued. “The problem with that is we have two photo journalists and however many reporters. We have maybe 20. It’s not enough. We would love to do these big dramatic things,” she said.
Stuckey said the first meeting she had with Bhatia was the morning she was laid off.
“I’d only really worked for newspapers owned by corporations, and you don’t have access to the designers. I felt I was finally in a position where I can do that stuff,” she said.
Stuckey described Rahman as “beloved” by the newsroom, and recounted how the journalists showed up early on Monday morning to protest what they feared was coming.
“That is why they’re fighting back. It is not easy to do what they’re doing. They’re doing what they believe is right, and that is what Mizanur taught them to do — to raise their voice, respectfully. He taught them to speak their mind, and he taught them to stand up for what is right,” Stuckey said.
As part of her severance offer, Stuckey was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. She refused. Asked if she’d reconsidered that decision, she said, “Absolutely not. My integrity is not for sale. I would rather eat ramen every day until I find another job. You cannot buy my integrity or my silence.”
Bhatia confirmed that Rahman and Stuckey were presented with severance packages, including a confidentiality agreement.
Stuckey posted to X/Twitter that she declined to sign it.
“It is completely standard protocol,” Bhatia said.
“In my long career — every place I’ve worked — when you leave, there's a severance agreement, and you’re asked to sign a standard release. … To think this is some horrible suppression of free speech is completely naïve,” he said.
Bhatia said Houston Landing would also fill Stuckey’s vacated position.
“We really need people who can help us be creative. A lot of people have asked me, ‘Well, what does that look like? Who’s doing it well?’ Honestly, not very many are. The Washington Post and The New York Times do. … We all know that, and we're all jealous because they have a ton of people who can do them, and the rest of us don't,” Bhatia said. “But I think we have the opportunity to lead the way on this. We’ll hire more digitally savvy people. We’ll hire people who can do data visualizations, and we’ve already got great web designers working here.
“We’re going to figure out a way to break some new ground here because we need to distinguish ourselves,” he said.
But he also regrets not reaching this strategy conclusion sooner, potentially avoiding personnel changes. “At the end of the day, I just had to make a change,” he concluded.
After speaking with E&P on Wednesday afternoon, Bhatia planned to return to the office. He and the staff anticipated hearing from the board of directors by day’s end. By evening, word had come that the board backed Bhatia’s decision and had their vote of confidence.
Read the letter from the board to the newsroom:
Gretchen A. Peck is a contributing editor to Editor & Publisher. She’s reported for E&P since 2010 and welcomes comments at gretchenapeck@gmail.com.
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