Arizona Agenda reported on Wednesday that The Arizona Republic, which is owned by media conglomerate Gannett Co. Inc., has reportedly bought out its most well-known journalists with voluntary severance agreements due to a lack of money.
The outlet, which labeled it a “bloodbath,” said The Republic is also moving its printing operations out of state.
The Republic, which is the state’s largest newspaper, developed a reputation for pushing progressive views, which have grown increasingly at odds with the Republican state, which has a 7 percent Republican voter registration over Democrats.
Two of the journalists reportedly leaving include the two most well-known opinion columnists, Laurie Roberts and E.J. Montini. Many Arizonans viewed the pair as the voice of the newspaper, contributing to its decline. Gannett acknowledged in 2022, “Today’s contemporary audiences frequently are unable to distinguish between objective news reporting and Opinion content.”
Other prominent left-leaning journalists reportedly taking buyouts are longtime political journalists Mary Jo Pitzl, Elva Diaz, and Phil Boas.
Ad Fontes Media rated The Republic as “skews left” in its category of bias. The Republic endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. The Phoenix New Times published an entire article about how the mainstream media characterized the endorsement as coming from a “conservative” newspaper, but went over how The Republic hadn’t been conservative in years.
“[L]ongtime readers know well that the Republic has changed over time, and that part of that change has been a drift away from conservatism,” New Times said. “Speaking on background, a former editorial board member says the leftward shift became noticeable with the appointment of Keven Willey to the position of editorial-page editor in 1998.”
USA Today, which is also owned by Gannett, said The Republic lost subscribers after the Clinton endorsement. Trump posted on social media gleefully about the loss, “The people are really smart in cancelling subscriptions to the Dallas & Arizona papers & now USA Today will lose readers! The people get it!” The Dallas Morning News had also endorsed Clinton.
Gannett banned presidential endorsements from its newspapers in 2024 in an attempt to stem the tide of fleeing subscribers. The Republic halted the practice in 2020.
Increases in digital subscriptions have not outpaced the decline in print subscriptions. In 2019, The Republic’s circulation dropped 30.3 percent from two years earlier. Most of Gannett’s papers — 80 percent — lost circulation at a faster rate than the national average, and 10 percent declined at twice that rate or more.
When Gannett merged with GateHouse in 2019, there were over 21,200 employees. By 2023, that number had shrunk to about 10,000, less than half. New Times reported in 2021 that many employees were deserting The Republic, with many citing low pay as the reason. Uriel J. García, a former public safety reporter at The Republic, said he originally came from a position making $40,000 at a paper in New Mexico, but was forced to accept only $33,000 at The Republic.
Midway through 2022, Gannett reported a net loss of $53.7 million, or over 7 percent of its margin, resulting in layoffs and cutting salaries by 10 percent or more. An employee noted that the CEO’s salary is $7.74 million, while the average employee makes only $48,000.
Gannett scaled back on opinion in 2022 in another attempt to stop the hemorrhaging. Its papers “dropp[ed] traditional features such as syndicated columns and editorial cartoons,” The Washington Post reported. “Even political endorsements and letters to the editor are being scaled back.”
Gannett acknowledged that readers “perceive us as having a biased agenda” and editorials and opinion columns are “frequently cited” by readers as a reason for canceling their subscriptions. The Republic reduced the opinion section in its print edition to only three days per week.
Despite its efforts, between 2022 and 2023, The Republic lost over 25,700 subscriptions, decreasing from over 210,400 to 184,700.
By the end of 2024, Gannett was down to only 8,900 employees, 11 percent from the year before, and 20 percent from the end of 2022. Annual sales decreased from $3.21 billion in 2021 to $2.51 billion in 2024. Gannett offered some employees voluntary severance packages and gave them until July 30 to accept them. In a memo to staff, the corporation said it would become more reliant on AI. In July, Gannett announced its plans to lay off 117 workers in Arizona.
Gannett owns other major left-leaning media newspapers in the state: Arizona News Service, which produces Arizona Capitol Times and Yellow Sheet Report, and TNI Partners, which produces Arizona Daily Star. TNI Partner’s Tucson Citizen went out of business a few years ago.
Other left-leaning newspapers across the country owned by Gannett include The Detroit Free Press, The Tennessean, and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The paper’s union, the Arizona Republic Guild, has documented the decline in recent years. In November 2022, its X account posted, “Today, members of the Arizona Republic Guild are walking out for one day in response to @Gannett’s decimation of local newsrooms and its refusal to commit to equitable pay, outsourcing protections and affordable benefits in our first contract. #GannettWalkout.”
A follow-up post added, “Our reporters should not have to work second or third jobs just to be able to afford to live in the communities we cover.”
News of The Republic’s decline comes a week after another media conglomerate, News Media Corporation, announced that it is shutting down, closing five rural Arizona newspapers due to a lack of funding. The five rural newspapers shuttering are Gateway to Copper Corridor, Arizona Silverbelt, Copper Country News in Globe, Page-based Lake Powell Chronicle, and Gateway to Canyon Country. The company published 25 different newspapers across five states — Arizona, Illinois, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming — focusing on smaller cities and towns with populations between 5,000 and 50,000.
Attorney General Kris Mayes, who has received significant favorable coverage from The Republic, posted her disappointment on X. “The buyouts at the Arizona Republic are devastating,” she said. “Losing legendary reporters like @maryjpitzl means less accountability and less transparency for the public. And it’s bad news for democracy. As a former Republic reporter it breaks my heart to see the state of the paper today.”
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on X/Twitter. Email tips to .
Photo “The Arizona Republic Building” by Harrison Keely. CC BY 4.0.
The post The Arizona Republic’s Top Progressive Journalists Reportedly Accept Buyouts to Leave first appeared on The Arizona Sun Times.