By: E&P Staff David Cohen founded the newspaper group in California that became Silicon Valley Community Newspapers (SVCN), and became its principal owner and CEO when it was spun off as a separate group. It grew from six to 11 weeklies.
When Cohen sold SVCN to Knight Ridder, he stayed on as group publisher and retained the position when the weeklies ended up with MediaNews Group as part of its acquisition of the San Jose Mercury News.
But now Cohen joins the large ranks of newspaper veterans laid off by the brutal industry economy. In a literal exit interview with his newspaper, the publisher told reporter Dale Bryant he understood the move.
"Still, since we've always been very lean, it made financial sense to eliminate my position," he said. "This will give the papers a cushion in difficult times.''
Mac Tully, president and publisher of the San Jose Mercury News, said it was a tough decision laying off Cohen "because we realize how respected David is in the community, and he's done a great job of keeping SVCN profitable in a difficult economic environment. The bottom line is, this was a decision based on a restructuring of the business due to an extremely challenging economy."
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