Nancy San Martín, managing editor of el Nuevo Herald, resigned today and Aminda Marqués González will no longer be the publisher of the Miami Herald.
Marqués González will stay on at the paper, reverting to her prior role as executive editor for both the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald. She will also be McClatchy’s regional editor for Florida.
Jay Ducassi, the Miami Herald’s metro editor, was named interim managing editor of el Nuevo Herald.
Marqués González, who began her career in 1986 as a reporter at the Miami Herald, and worked up the ranks, was promoted to publisher in 2019.
San Martín was named managing editor at el Nuevo Herald in 2017, after a lengthy career with the company. She gave this statement to the Herald about her departure: “I’ve given 30 years of my life to this profession, 20 of those to this newsroom. I’m super proud of the work we’ve done, the changes we’ve made, the diversity we’ve brought and the exceptional storytelling we deliver in two languages every single day in multiple formats and on various platforms. It’s been a fantastic ride and I look forward to the next chapter of my life.”
The leadership changes at the McClatchy-owned Miami publications comes two weeks after revelations that a paid, independent supplement called LIBRE sold by the advertising team and printed and distributed as an insert in el Nuevo Herald included racist and anti-Semitic content. It wasn’t until a reader complained, that the editorial teams became aware of the publication’s questionable content – something that had been potentially happening for months.
On September 14, Marqués González and San Martín co-signed a letter apologizing to readers for LIBRE’s “inflammatory, racist and anti-Semitic commentary,” informing them the had company ended its commercial relationship and would “never publish, print or distribute its content again.”
“The fact that no one in leadership, beginning with us, had previously read this advertising insert until this issue was surfaced by a reader is distressing,” they wrote. “It is one of a series of internal failures that we are investigating in order to prevent this from ever recurring.”
In a statement issued last week, McClatchy stated:
“After an initial internal review, we have identified significant lapses in our procedures and processes that enabled this paid insert with deeply-offensive and racist content to reach our subscribers and our community. Together with our colleagues at the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald we apologize again for this failure to live up to the aspirations of our mission — to deliver essential news and information that helps our communities thrive. The trust and respect of the communities our newsrooms serve is our highest priority.
As a result of this initial review, we have developed new controls and processes that will be implemented immediately in Miami and across all of our operations. Our internal review is not complete and it is our intention to continue to be transparent and share what we find out with our colleagues internally, our subscribers and our community.”
The company would not make any further statements about the leadership changes, but pointed to a story in today’s Herald, which cited Kristin Roberts, McClatchy’s VP of news, announcing the changes in a staff email, including “personnel actions” in the advertising team “consistent with our company-wide expectations of leadership.”