More layoffs and consolidations in the Northern California newspaper market.

(Editor's note: The original version of the story attributed a quote incorrectly to Herald city editor David Kellogg; the quote was said by former Herald reporter Dennis Taylor. In addition, it was Taylor, and not Kellogg, who was covered by the old Knight Ridder contract.)

The Monterey Herald showed an astounding bit of self-awareness in its March 1 “Hits and Misses” column, a regular feature in its opinion section that usually contains such deep insights as “child murder is a miss” and “butterflies and otters as a tourism driver are a hit.”

The lead item in this particular column rejoices that the film Spotlight, which chronicles a team of Boston Globe investigative journalists as they uncover widespread child sex abuse by priests in the Boston Archdiocese, won Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards.

The Herald column noted that Spotlight “captures the ability of newspapers to make a difference in the lives of readers.”

True. But the self-awareness comes a few lines later, when the unnamed writer opines that it’s hard to accept how far newspapers have fallen, both in influence and the number of working journalists still in existence.

“Blame it on the Internet and social media, or more pointedly, on the takeover of many newspapers for purely financial purposes by private equity firms and hedge funds; it’s painful to contemplate – and to experience,” the item states.

What’s self-aware about it is this: The Herald’s parent company, Digital First Media, is owned by a Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund that specializes in distressed assets, and Alden Global Capital has done its level best to gut the Herald of everything that makes it a newspaper. Layoffs, firings and resignations had become routine. Since 2014, the Herald lost investigative reporter Virginia Hennessey, city reporter Larry Parsons, editor Royal Calkins and music writer Mac McDonald. Designer James Herrera left, but then was rehired as a reporter when criminal justice reporter Julie Reynolds resigned.

For a time, things stabilized.

• • •

On Feb. 5, veteran features writer Dennis Taylor was hanging out at his house in Salinas. He was working the night shift that day, and on his own time, he wrote a feature piece about Bill Murray, who nobody was sure would show up to this year’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He had just finished when his phone rang. His editor, Dave Kellogg, asked him to come in for a 2pm meeting.

“I’m a good soldier,” Taylor says. “Sure, I’ll drive over there for a meeting hours before my shift.”

He needn’t have worried about driving back to Salinas and then back to Monterey the same day. In a 10-minute meeting with Kellogg and a human resources person – who did all the talking – Taylor was told his newsroom position had been eliminated, “effective immediately.”

His life and health insurance ended Feb. 29. For his 18 years of service, they gave him $6,000 in severance.

When Taylor started at the paper, there were 160 employees – “not counting management,” he says. “Now there are 31, not counting management.”

Going back to “Hits and Misses,” it’s worth noting Taylor had been with the paper so long he was covered under the old Knight Ridder contract, the one in place when Knight Ridder first sold the Herald. He made more money and received better benefits than those hired after the sale.

It’s not just the Herald. On March 1, the San Jose Mercury News announced up to 43 newsroom jobs would be eliminated by April, that the paper would merge with the San Mateo County Times and operate under the Merc banner. The 142-year-old Oakland Tribune will stop publishing daily and be absorbed into a new paper, East Bay Times – a consolidation of the Contra Costa Times, the Hayward Daily Review and the Fremont Argus, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

At least some of this is being chronicled by Taylor and other Digital Firsters at the website www.dfmworkers.org. Taylor did an eloquent piece on what it’s like to toil under hedge-fund owners.

“I was proud to do it and I tried to be fair-handed,” he says.

The rumors that a local ownership group is trying to buy the Herald are still around, but much like before, nobody involved is willing to talk about it. Maybe a lack of action in public means there’s a lot of action going on in private.

MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com.