The editor and sports writer at Gatehouse Media’s weekly newspaper in Perry have resigned, according to industry reports.
Perry Chief Editor Stephanie Ivankovitch left after 18 months with the paper, and Perry Chief Sports Editor Cesar Toledo gave his notice after spending less than one year on the job. Their departures follow former publisher Patricia Saulsbury Snyder’s resignation in May.
“Perry will always have a special place in my heart, and I will never forget it,” Ivankovitch said last week.
Prior to her editorship in Perry, Ivankovitch, a Grand View University graduate, spent 15 months on the police beat at the Marshalltown Times-Republican and three months as an intern at Patch.
Toledo, a former high school mathematics teacher, took a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia. He and his wife, Melissa Toledo, who also writes, have a young son. Toledo’s last day at the Perry weekly will be July 22.
“My wife has a job opportunity back in Georgia,” Toledo said Monday. “We’ve loved working in Perry, but this move will get us a lot closer to our family in Florida.”
It has been a year of shakeups for Gatehouse Media Iowa Holdings. The company ceased publishing the Northeast Dallas County Record in February, and earlier this month the company closed its Adel operations and moved them to its Perry offices, which now house the Perry Chief and the Dallas County News.
The closure of the Adel offices, including several layoffs, followed similar consolidations in the company’s Story County papers. The Nevada Journal and Story City Herald now operate out of the Ames offices of the Ames Tribune, the company’s flagship paper in Iowa.
Las Vegas-based Stephens Media sold the Iowa newspapers in 2015 to New Media Investment Group, a company out of New York. Gatehouse Media Iowa Holdings is the Iowa division of New Media Investment Group, a New York-based holding company.
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I am not surprised. The Perry Chief has gone downhill the last year and one half, less local news and more advertising from Boone and Story counties, fewer pages and many mistakes. Depend on ThePerryNews.com
Too bad. The Chief has been in a steady decline since its service to the local community and journalistic integrity became secondary to the profit motivations of out-of-state concerns that have no other ties here.