FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 28, 2024
Contact: baltsunguild@gmail.com
The Baltimore Sun dissolved its features department Monday, reassigning its staff to news departments – the first time since at least 1888 that the newspaper won’t have even one reporter dedicated to covering the city’s cultural life.
Impacted by the cuts are features reporter Mike Klingaman, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, food and dining reporter Amanda Yeager, who consistently writes some of the Sun’s best-read stories, and Mary Carole McCauley, who has won 9 of her 10 national feature writing awards at the Sun. The Sun will continue to cover news developments in the arts and food industries, but not the features, exhibit advances and reviews that make up the soul of features reporting.
These draconian measures are demoralizing, but they won’t deter the Baltimore Sun journalists. In the past two months, 8 union reporters have resigned – or more than a quarter of the news reporting staff. One was fired for speaking out, which the Guild has challenged. The Sun also laid off 3 union-represented advertising employees.
The Guild is devastated for the chefs, artists, musicians and business owners who are no longer considered worthy of coverage by their hometown newspaper – and for readers, who will lose information they can use to decide how to spend their money and time.
Restaurant entrepreneur Tony Foreman told a News Guild staff member that the features’ desk’s demise is “the last move in what feels like a dance of death to any independent journalistic spirit that The Sun has had. It makes me very sad to see what historically has been a pillar of the community be turned into a spineless, shapeless agent of propaganda.”
Rebecca Hoffberger, founder of Baltimore’s American Visionary Arts Museum said that without The Baltimore Sun’s “lavish in-depth, arts and architecture coverage of my idea for the American Visionary Art Museum back in 1991, there may well have never been an AVAM.”
Jeannie L. Howe, executive director of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance said it was “unconscionable and bad business for the Baltimore Sun to eliminate coverage of arts and culture. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis the culture sector contributes $11.7 billion to Maryland’s economy. Around the country, robust journalism which reflects the community continues to decline. Let’s not let this erosion in vital coverage happen here.”
The Guild’s stance is simple: if the Baltimore Sun isn’t covering culture, it isn’t covering Baltimore. Readers outraged by these decisions can submit a pre-written letter to Baltimore Sun owners David Smith and Armstrong Williams.