Fresno’s legacy newspaper took another hit with the local opinion section effectively removed.
Sources with knowledge told The Sun on Wednesday that McClatchy has laid off the Fresno Bee’s two top opinion writers.
The big picture: McClatchy, The Bee’s parent company, has laid off opinion editor Juan Esparza Loera and opinion writer Tad Weber.
- Weber had retired as the opinion editor in 2024 and had been working part-time as a writer and an editor since.
- The staffing moves also follow longtime columnist Marek Warszawski leaving the paper over the summer.
- Opinion pieces are now slated to come from writers employed by The Sacramento Bee and other McClatchy properties.
State of play: Dismantling the Fresno Bee’s opinion section is just the latest in a long line of moves to make the newspaper less and less local.
- The Bee ‘s management has been no stranger to the struggle of local newspapers across the country over the last few decades.
- The paper used to be a force in the local market, employing over 800 employees at its peak. Staffing fell to around 200 by 2017, when former publisher Tom Cullinan announced that The Bee was looking for a new office.
- McClatchy moved The Bee’s printing operations out of Fresno in 2016 to Sacramento, which handcuffed what news The Bee could include in its print edition due to earlier deadlines.
- Further, Senior Editor Christopher Kirkpatrick announced last year that the Fresno Bee would no longer publish a print newspaper every day, moving to a Sunday-Wednesday-Friday schedule delivered with the mail.
