St. Louis Post-Dispatch Lays Off Long-Time Food Editor

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch laid off four newsroom managers yesterday, including Judith Evans, the paper's food editor (Romenesko says more layoffs are coming). According to the Riverfront Times, she's a a 26-year veteran of the paper and has run the section for 19 years. The Post-Dispatch won the James Beard award for "Newspaper Food Section With Circulation Under 300,000" in 2003.

Evans told RFT: "It came as a complete surprise, which is perhaps naïve on my part." She tweeted: "Along with far too many colleagues, I've been laid off from the Post-Dispatch. I'm still in shock, and pondering my future." (Incidentally she already updated her Twitter bio to read "former food editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch." It gets worse: Just hours before the layoffs, Lee Enterprises, the parent of the Dispatch, awarded its CEO Mary Junck 500,000 shares of company stock, valued at $655,000. It's not just restaurant critics that are a casualty in the demise of the newspaper, it's sometimes entire sections too.

· Food Editor Judith Evans Among Post-Dispatch Layoffs [RFT]
· Why CEO Mary Junck Was Awarded $655,000 in Stock [Romenesko]
· All Food Media Coverage on Eater [-E-]