San Jose Paper Discards Sunday Magazine, Citing Political Fairness

The San Jose Mercury News decided to pull its Sunday magazine from circulation because an anti-GOP cover story scheduled to run just two days before the general election raised concerns about fairness, editors said.

Mercury News executive editor David Yarnold sent a memo to staff members Friday, explaining that today’s issue of the newspaper’s SV (Silicon Valley) magazine lacked balance and that the decision to yank it was “unfortunate” and “embarrassing.”

“This is going to result in some major upheaval because two-thirds of the Sunday insert packages are complete,” Yarnold told staffers in a memo Friday.

The cover story of the magazine was a personal essay by Mercury News reporter and lifelong Democrat David Early. In his essay, he wondered how anyone he liked or admired could be a Republican.

The Mercury News enlisted employees from all departments Friday to remove 200,000 copies of the magazine that had been inserted into Sunday editions. Another 150,000 copies had yet to be inserted, but some had probably hit the streets before they could be removed, Yarnold said.

“I think it’s likely that some will slip through,” Yarnold said Saturday. When asked whether any editorial policy changes would be made in light of the magazine pullback, Yarnold replied, “I’m sure we’re all going to learn from this.”

Yarnold said the edition of SV magazine lacked an opposing point of view. He also stated that the magazine didn’t meet Mercury News standards because it was to appear on newsstands just two days before election day.

Early’s essay would have been fine if it had run three months earlier, according to Yarnold. He went on to tell Mercury News employees that Early was a dedicated writer and the magazine’s removal was not intended as a criticism of him.