Guild co-chair on the cut list

MediaNews announced last week that it will cut 29 editorial positions as of July 11. Sara Steffens, co-chair of the organizing committee that successfully unionized the papers last month, is one of those slated to receive a pink slip.

The move has prompted whispers of retaliation. According to the guild's Web site, Steffens made the list after "an evaluation of the expendability or redundancy of positions." Steffens covers poverty and social services, which is indeed the kind of beat many newspapers have determined to be expendable.