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Gannett Fired an Editor for Speaking to Another Outlet

Longtime editor Sarah Leach believes the company must have combed through her office emails.

Gannett fired an editor who spoke with Poynter for a story—and she believes the media company may have hacked her emails in order to obtain evidence. Poynter reported on Thursday that Gannett editor Sarah Leach, who oversaw 26 newspapers across four states, was fired after the company learned she spoke to Poynter for a story on Gannett’s stalled initiatives to staff up its small newspapers. Gannett cited “documentary evidence” that she spoke with Poynter—with no other evidence that she was a source, leading Leach to believe the media giant went through her emails. “That’s the only way I can think of that they could have known,” she told Poynter’s Rick Edmonds, the reporter she spoke with—and tipped off—for the story, which ultimately published on May 1. Leach was fired on April 29, two days before Edmonds’ story ran. “Gannett’s top management extols itself for its commitment to excellent journalism while deploying espionage on its own employees?” Edmonds wrote on Thursday. “What a bunch of phonies.”