By: Joe Strupp The Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists today called for ?a public discussion ? at the earliest date possible ? of the Hearst Corporation?s threat to make deeper newsroom cutbacks or it will close? the San Francisco Chronicle, according to a release.
?The chapter?s board insists that this discussion include the paper?s broad community of leading-edge thinkers, readers and journalists,? the release added. ?The board fears additional cuts will exacerbate what it perceives to be an already growing vacuum of credible reporting and will further limit scrutiny of our public institutions.?
"We hold no faith in claims that if it reduces its staff even further, the Chronicle can maintain adequate ? much less high-quality ? coverage of the myriad issues affecting the lives of Bay Area residents," SPJ board president Ricardo Sandoval said in a statement.
Hearst recently announced that severe spending cuts or a sale were needed to avoid a shutdown.
?A closure would mean losing the largest source of news for hundreds of thousands of readers in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region that leads the world in innovation,? the SPJ release said. ?To date, this community of creative thinkers has been excluded from discussions regarding the paper?s downward spiral.?
The board asked the Hearst Corporation ?to participate in a high-profile conversation with its community based on the imperative of reinvention, a conversation conducted with an openness and transparency that no paper has dared anywhere else. Our chapter stands ready to facilitate this dialogue in any way it can.?
Hearst officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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