La Opinión’s reporter pool continues to shrink. Yurina Melara and Jorge Morales have opted out of the Los Angeles’ Spanish-language daily for other jobs.
Jorge, whose last day at La Opinión is today, accepted a job as reporter for Univision Digital, based in Los Angeles. He starts the first week of January. He had been at La Opinión since February of 2003. He was previously a reporter for Frontera newspaper in his hometown of Tijuana, Mexico.
Yurina will be joining Covered California as a Public Information Officer Specialist for the L.A.-area starting in January. She had been a health reporter for the paper for almost 11 years until last Friday. Before that, she was an editor for the now-defunct La Ola weekly. She previously worked for Diario El Mundo in her native El Salvador.
“The print industry is not what it was two decades ago,” says Yurina about her decision to leave a career in journalism. “After thinking about my future, I decided that the best thing for me is to move to the state agency created by Obamacare. Latinos need healthcare and I will be there to help guide them in Spanish.”
Their departures come a month after another round of layoffs at the paper, in which longtime photographer Ciro Cesar and reporter Marvelia Alpízar lost their jobs.
That currently leaves the paper’s editorial count with three general assignment reporters and one photographer – a drop from 11 reporters and 4 photogs 10 years ago.