I skip out of town for a few days, and all hell breaks loose at
LEO. On a personal level, I'm a big fan of Sara Havens, and as usual, Kevin Gibson gets it right.
Opinion: LEO Weekly made a big mistake in jettisoning ‘The Bar Belle’, by Kevin Gibson (Insider Louisville)
Last Friday, on her 15th anniversary of working for the news magazine she loved, Sara was unceremoniously “let go.” As you’ve no doubt already heard, LEO was purchased by Aaron Yarmuth, son of founder John Yarmuth, for whom I worked all those years ago. The sale went through Friday, and the younger Yarmuth’s first order of business was to lay off four employees.
I’m not going to bash the new ownership; times are tough, Yarmuth had his reasons, and I suspect he found out he had fired Sara on her 15th anniversary after the fact. (I’m a benefit of the doubt kind of guy.) But I am going to say this about his decision: Good luck with that.
Apparently there was a fractious staff meeting -- at this juncture, "staff" being a somewhat nebulous concept.
LEO Weekly left with zero editorial employees after two remaining staffers walk out (Insider Louisville)
A source inside LEO Weekly says the publication’s two remaining full-time editorial staffers walked out following a meeting this morning with new owner Aaron Yarmuth.
We were in Duluth when the story began breaking, and our conclusion? Neither of us could remember the last time that
LEO was a "must read," or something we grabbed as soon as it appeared at the coffee shop or pub. It's no reflection on Sara as editor, just recognition that for some years now, the publication has been average at best.
Since the demise of my beer column, at the very least.
I think that's a joke. In the interest of equal time, Aaron Yarmuth "broke" the silence last evening at the publication's Facebook page. Here it is, in its entirety.
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Breaking the silence.
Hello LEO readers and Louisvillians. While this is not my official introduction letter — which will be running in Wednesday’s issue — it is with a heavy heart, and great sincerity that I write on behalf of the staff and new management to explain what happened late last week.
First and foremost, I am terribly sorry to those LEO staffers who were not brought on to the new company. Contrary to what has been widely reported/misconstrued, is that the first act of new management was to fire staff. The truth is that it was the last act of SouthComm to let go of all of its employees.
My biggest personal regret is that I was not personally able to be with the people at LEO during the tumultuous afternoon.
That being said, last Friday, August 1st, was the third attempt at closing the deal. There was no nefarious attempt to avoid bad news on a Friday afternoon. In fact, my partner and I spent over 4 hours in my attorney’s office on Thursday the 31st, trying to close the deal so that we could have those conversations then. It unfortunately spilled over into Friday, and even still, I had every intention of meeting with the staff.
Finally, as the final transactions took multiple hours to execute, we had run into the early evening. I was away from the office doing everything I could, personally, to see the deal closed, and simultaneously, SouthComm had to begin notifying employees. Again, I am forever sorry that things transpired the way they did, but I was in a place where I had to make sure the deal was closed.
The worst came when I received a text notifying me that it was — to the day — the 15th anniversary for Sara Havens at LEO. I would like to think that had we known that, we could have avoided it. But as it turned out, it was unavoidable.
In sum, we had a press release ready, plans to do a story on our website, and I intended to be readily available to respond to questions, concerns, comments, et cetera — staff, media, and the public. By the time the process had begun, it was too late. Joe Sonka was on assignment at Fancy Farm, people had left for the weekend, and we did not even have access to certain LEO outlets until the deal was closed.
From there, we were not in a position to communicate until this morning. Unfortunately, due to some more pressing issues that arose this morning, I am sorry that this is the first moment I have had to relay this communication to the public — via our own channel.
The good news is, LEO will be going to print tomorrow evening, and come Wednesday morning it will be in the racks waiting for you — with a surprise, special guest commentator.
There will be a lot more to come on the staff changes, and our plans for the future of LEO. But as every President has reported, “The state of our publication is strong!”
Aaron Yarmuth
