OAKLAND — The publisher of the East Bay Express has resigned after admitting to taking down three blog posts and using a racial slur during a staff meeting, prompting two employees to quit in protest.
Stephen Buel, 59, stepped down as publisher of the Oakland-based alternative weekly on Saturday, a day after he issued an apology on the publication’s website. Buel said his presence had become “a threat” to the independent newspaper’s mission.
He and his wife remain the majority owners of the publication but on Monday he said they plan on selling the company.
“Perhaps now more than ever before, the East Bay needs healthy independent journalism,” Buel wrote on a post on the publication’s website. “Because my presence at Telegraph Media has become a threat to that mission — and to the careers of the hard-working people who produce the East Bay Express, Oakland Magazine, Alameda Magazine, the East Bay Monthly and Bay Woof — I am stepping down as publisher of those titles.”
The publisher apologized for removing three blog posts about the BottleRock music festival without consulting the editor and reporter who produced them. In a blog post published Monday, former Express arts and culture writer Azucena Rasilla said Buel took issue with her writing about how uncomfortable she felt while white people sang along to the N-word during rapper E-40’s performance.
According to Rasilla, Buel loudly used the N-word while discussing the story in front of her and other staffers.
“The Express editor in chief, managing editor and myself looked at each other in horror,” she wrote on journalist Gustavo Arellano’s website. “I angrily responded that no white, or brown person had the right to use that word regardless of context.”
Buel said he was “extremely sorry” for using the N-word and admitted he should not have taken down the articles.
In the comment section below his apology, former publisher Jody Colley accused Buel of inappropriately kissing her at a work event in 2009. Buel responded that he gave Colley “an inappropriate congratulatory kiss” and “immediately realized the error.”
“I made a couple mistakes in the past month, and another one a decade ago, but the universe doesn’t seem to believe in forgiveness at the moment,” Buel said in an email. “So I stepped down because that seemed like the best way to safeguard our company’s journalism and jobs.”
The fallout was swift. Before Buel resigned, Rasilla and calendar editor Beatrice Kilat quit, according to staff members who did not want to be named. Music writer Sam Lefebvre tweeted on Friday he was stepping down as a columnist. And Feelmore, an adult gallery located in Uptown Oakland, announced it will no longer advertise in the Express.
https://twitter.com/Lefebvre_Sam/status/1017914400181608448
Goodbye to East Bay Express advertising bc of racism.
As a biz tht has for years counted on EBX for advertising, we must remember who we are…a POC company, employing POC, supporting the needs of POC et al in Oakland. https://t.co/is4vrIBafM
— Feelings Arent Free (@FeelmoreAdult) July 16, 2018
Editor-in-chief Kathleen Richards said she recently gave her two-week notice after Buel refused to stay out of the editorial decision-making process. However, Richards will stay on under new publisher Robert Gammon, a longtime writer and editor with the Express. Gammon said Richards will have total control over the editorial process.
Meanwhile, Buel said he and his wife, who are the majority owners of the publication, “plan to pursue the sale of our company. … That said, there aren’t many people brave enough to invest in print journalism these days, and we have invested our life savings in the business and don’t wish to lose that.”
Buel has worked in newspapers since 1981 and served stints at the now-defunct Berkeley Gazette and as an editor overseeing a team of reporters covering race and demographics at the San Jose Mercury News from 1995 to 1999. He served as editor of the Express from 2001 to 2010 and returned as majority owner last year.
Founded in 1978, the Express covers news and culture in the East Bay with a circulation of 35,000.
