The newspaper chain McClatchy eliminated more than 30 positions in the newsroom of The Miami Herald on Thursday, September 10, representing more than a third of its editorial staff, while the newsroom of El Nuevo Herald was practically dismantled, according to a report by The New York Times, which consulted five people with direct knowledge of the layoffs.
According to the agency Associated Press (AP), a total of 32 positions were cut: 28 jobs were lost and four positions were frozen. "Among the cuts was the entire editorial staff of El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language publication," the report specified.
Among those affected in Miami are the deputy sports editor Andre Fernandez, the sports columnist Michelle Kaufman, the city hall reporter Tess Riski, and the photographer Alie Skowronski, in addition to writers from El Nuevo Herald, founded in 1977 as the journalistic voice of the Hispanic community in South Florida.
The Herald will have no dedicated reporters for the municipalities of Miami and Miami Beach, nor will it have an exclusive political journalist, a gap that deeply concerns those closely following local power coverage.
Greg Farmer, Executive Vice President of Local News at McClatchy, justified the decision in an internal email sent to the newsrooms: "We cannot continue to invest where subscriber interest does not support the investment."
Farmer noted that consumer revenues had fallen 41% over five years while expenses remained stable.
The investigations editor of the Herald, Carol Marbin Miller, with 26 years at the newspaper, did not hide her dismay.
"Everyone is astonished by the extent of the cuts. I have seen multiple rounds of layoffs. I don't recall a day when 30 positions were eliminated in one go," he declared to The New York Times.
His warning was even more emphatic: "Miami is about to become a news desert. Even if we survive these cuts, there won't be enough of us to cover even a fraction of what this market needs."
«The future of the Herald, the future of journalism in Miami, is crucial for the health of our state», stated Marbin Miller. «What good is government in the sunlight when there are no watchdogs looking in those dark places?»
The Cuban-American journalist Wilfredo Cancio Isla, former editor of El Nuevo Herald, expressed on Facebook his "deep professional distress" and described the layoffs as "the prelude to the death of two journalistic operations."
Cancio Isla also recalled that exactly 20 years ago another traumatic break occurred at the same newspaper, when three journalists —including himself— were fired for receiving fees from Radio y TV Martí, a scandal that ended with the resignation of the then CEO of The Miami Herald Media Co.
"Altogether, 25 members of the editorial team of The Miami Herald —about a third of the staff— and seven writers from El Nuevo Herald were laid off, including veteran figures such as the award-winning sports commentator Jorge Ebro, cultural writer Sarah Moreno, editor Daniel Shoer, and the beloved friend and translator Jorge Posada," detailed Cancio.
The journalist also added that Nora Gámez, who covers Cuban issues, and Antonio María Delgado, who specializes in Venezuelan topics, retained their positions.
The layoffs occur amid increasing tension between McClatchy and its journalists over the use of artificial intelligence.
The company launched a tool in 2026 that summarizes and rewrites articles for different audiences, publishing them under the original bylines of the reporters.
More than 65 unionized employees from the Miami Herald and the Bradenton Herald refused to have their names included in those contents, and in May, journalists from Washington and Idaho went on a one-day strike demanding contractual protections.
The cuts are also part of a wave of layoffs that affected at least 90 journalists across dozens of McClatchy publications nationwide.
In the Pacific Northwest, 17 journalists from The Bellingham Herald and The Idaho Statesman lost their jobs—about a third of the unionized workforce—while at The Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky, 13 out of 23 newsroom employees were laid off, according to Florida Politics.
McClatchy, which acquired the Herald in 2006, was purchased in 2020 by the hedge fund Chatham Asset Management after declaring bankruptcy.
By the end of 2025, it had already closed its breaking news desk and its office in Washington.
According to a 2025 report from Northwestern University, nearly 40% of local newspapers in the United States have closed in the last two decades.
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