Writers Walk Out
at In Newsweekly

Three contributors and one staff member for Boston-based publication In Newsweekly have either formally resigned or stopped submitting to the newspaper, following an ownership change that saw its publisher failing to pay writers.

Reporter Chuck Colbert, Rhode Island correspondent Joe Siegel, religion columnist the Reverend Irene Monroe, and editor in chief Fred Kuhr have left the newspaper, according to a statement released by the four on Wednesday. HX Media acquired the newspaper from local publisher Chris Robinson in 2006. After the purchase, Kuhr cites in the release, management ignored concerns over the newspaper's new editorial direction -- abandoning hard news for social event coverage -- and that writers' payments were delayed for months. "Under new ownership and a new editor, the newspaper has taken a new direction, and it is one in which I see less of a role for myself to play," said Kuhr, editor in chief since 2002.

The group wrote a letter last month to HX Media CEO Matthew Bank, requesting to discuss their concerns, but a meeting was never set, according to the statement.

Colbert, who has written for In Newsweekly for more than a decade, said that the company owes him more than $2,300.

"The lack of response to our collective letter as well as my own letter to editor William Henderson and HX Media CEO Matthew Bank points, once again, to the nature of the problems -- heavy-handed and top down management, along with strong-armed editor/writer relationships, all of which is counterproductive to morale, especially in our industry and craft," he said in the statement.

Monroe, Kuhr, and Henderson are contributors to The Advocate. (The Advocate)