CL Atlanta Eliminates Four Positions, Pay Reduced Companywide 5%

At 2 p.m. today, we let go four incredibly talented longtime CL employees: managing editor/digital and food critic Besha Rodell, staff writer Scott Henry, arts writer Curt Holman, and special projects director (and former managing editor) Chanté LaGon.

There is no other way to put it: Losing these people as full-time employees is a blow to our company and our community, and they cannot be replaced. My great hope is that they will see fit to continue contributing to the paper and online as much as our freelance resources allow.

You can see from the internal memo I’ve pasted on the jump that this is part of a companywide reorganization. One element of that, as I mention in the headline, is a 5 percent pay cut companywide. The memo goes into more detail.

Posting will be light or non-existent the rest of the day.

Last thing: I owe it to the talented folks here to point out that we’ve still got a fantastic group of journalists, and we’ll still be doing great work. Just with heavy hearts.

UPDATE: CL group publisher Alison Draper talks to Poynter's Andrew Beaujon about today's news: