El Tecolote, the longest-running bilingual newspaper in California, has lost the majority of its staff over the past six months, including its editor-in-chief, Erika Carlos, who resigned and alleged in an Aug. 16 LinkedIn post a lack of “organizational support.”
In all, seven people have left the paper since March, including reporter Yesica Prado, whose position was eliminated, and longtime distribution manager who Johny García, who was fired. Managing editor Katie Beas is the only newsroom employee left from the editorial team of eight that started the year.
The paper’s founder Juan Gonzales stepped in as interim editor shortly after Carlos’ departure. He did not return calls or messages sent to him.
Imelda Carrasco, the executive director of Accíon Latina, the nonprofit that oversees El Tecolote, disputed accounts of internal strife and wrote in a statement, “Employee departures should not automatically be attributed to management or workplace concerns.” She added that there were many reasons for the attrition, “including career advancement, personal circumstances, changing professional interests, and new opportunities.”
Others, however, saw problems. Brooke Oliver, a 31-year Mission resident and influential arts and nonprofit lawyer known for protecting murals, served on Acción Latina’s board and employment committee for two years before resigning in 2025 “due to unresolved concerns with the organization’s employment practices,” she wrote.
In an email to Mission Local, she wrote of “a painful contradiction” in which “the board vigorously champions the Latinx working class publicly while denying that same support and encouragement to its own workers.”
“These employee departures are Acción Latina’s canary in the coal mine — a warning for all … The organization had a brilliant opportunity to evolve under a new generation of leaders. Instead, an entrenched pattern of resisting change to preserve traditional authority has choked workforce retention and development as well as digital reporting advancements.”
Indeed, many of those who left described a newsroom in disarray, with ongoing clashes between editorial and management over decision making and editorial independence. The details in this account are based on interviews with seven former staff members.
All but Prado, a former reporter, and Carlos asked to remain anonymous to protect their work prospects.
The exodus of at least Carlos and Prado came after clashes that involved Carlos, Carrasco, and Ana Montes, the chair of Accíon Latina’s board. Montes, who was appointed chair in 2022, had previous experience with El Tecolote, but the other two leaders were fairly new to the paper and their positions.
Carlos, a former producer and audience editor at the San Francisco Chronicle became editor-in-chief in February 2024. She reported to Carrasco, who assumed her position as executive director a year later in March 2025.
When asked about Oliver’s remarks, Montes said, “Everyone has their right to their opinion.”
Souring relationship between Carrasco and Carlos
Carrasco began her tenure at Acción Latina with a budget of just over $1.5 million, the largest the organization had ever had, according to a source close to the matter. The organization’s current budget is unknown as its last posted tax documents are from 2023, before Carlos or Carrasco began their positions.
The relationship between Carlos and Carrasco began well, former employees said, but changed when Carrasco allegedly began to meddle in editorial affairs.
In December 2025, former reporters said, Carrasco instructed the newsroom to slow down a public-records request to the office of District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder. Carrasco allegedly told the reporters not to overwork Fielder’s aides during the holidays, and questioned why the reporters were targeting the supervisor’s office.
Carrasco subsequently requested access to a spreadsheet of all the public records requests submitted by El Tecolote reporters. After pushback from Carlos, Carrasco elevated the issue to board president Montes, who directed Carlos to comply with the executive director’s request, according to Carlos.
“That was overreach,” said one former reporter. “She’s the executive and we’re the journalists. Let us do our job.”
Carlos described the conflict as a “significant disagreement” in which she “declined to provide [Carrasco] direct access to a log containing raw investigative reporting materials, because I believed those materials needed to remain within the editorial process.”
Carrasco disputed the account, but said the executive director may “require appropriate access to organizational systems and records” and that such access was “not intended to interfere with editorial decision-making.”
When asked about the incident, Montes said she remembered there was a question asked about the log. As for her ordering Carlos to grant access to Carrasco, she called the allegations inaccurate.
Unhappiness in the newsroom
At the same time that Carrasco and Carlos began feuding, newsroom morale was at a low. The former staffers described difficulties getting time-off approved, using their personal equipment for work and waiting months for reimbursements.
Prado, for instance, said that after getting approval from Carlos for paid leave to go to an investigative conference representing El Tecolote, Carrasco stepped in two weeks before the conference and denied the leave.
This was only one of many instances in which Carlos felt unable to make newsroom decisions. She wrote in a statement to Mission Local that “newsroom resources and staff needs” suffered as a result.
Carlos said she helped secure, submit or build relationships for a dozen grants during her tenure, totaling just over $1 million. But despite having the budget to do so, she could not make timely staff decisions, she said.
“I was increasingly unable to move forward funded resources, employment and freelance contracts and other basic operational needs necessary to sustain the newsroom’s work,” Carlos wrote in her LinkedIn post.
“We had resources to retain two journalists through the remainder of 2026 with new contracts after their existing contracts ended. Those positions had been funded and approved in the organizational budget. But while I was there, the contracts remained stalled in the approval process,” Carlos wrote in a statement to Mission Local.
The grants included the funding of a full-time reporter for two years through the California Local News Fellowship program, which provides newsrooms across the state with a fully-funded reporter for two years. El Tecolote has lost that fellow for at least the first year. (Mission Local has agreed to host that fellow.)
“In my view, many of these losses — and our inability to replace that lost capacity quickly enough — were preventable. I believe stable contracts, timely hiring and better working conditions could have made a meaningful difference,” Carlos wrote.
For her part, Montes, the board president, declined to speak about personnel issues, citing confidentiality and privacy laws.
A formal complaint and exodus
The conflicts became severe enough by June for Carlos to file a formal complaint about Carrasco’s management to the Acción Latina board. The complaint detailed concerns over Carrasco’s alleged behavior and mismanagement. Carlos said there was a different complaint filed by a different employee the following month alleging inappropriate conduct at the leadership level.
Carrasco said that she was aware of only one complaint, and that a human resources specialist had opened an investigation to address the complaint.
“While we can’t discuss the details of that investigation, we can confirm that the organization followed proper procedure in accordance with our policies. Employees are expected to be able to raise good-faith concerns without retaliation,” Carrasco wrote.
The complaints came too late to prevent an exodus of staff. Already, in March, photojournalist Pablo Unzueta had left four months before the end of a three-year fellowship. In July, reporter Mariana Duran left two weeks before her fellowship ended, to start another. And in August, business manager Kari Vides left to pursue a master’s degree in London.
With little hope of change, Carlos also left in mid-August. Under her stewardship, El Tecolote won 10 journalism awards, including two at the Institute for Nonprofit News, four at the California Journalism Awards in 2024 and three by the Society of Professional Journalists last fall. It published an average of six to seven stories a month over the past year.
“Stepping down was, and continues to be, an extremely difficult decision because I have immense respect for El Tecolote and the community it serves,” wrote Carlos.
Video reporter Emma Garcia departed last week after her fellowship ended. At present, the paper’s fulltime staff includes only managing editor Beas. Founder Gonzales has stepped in to help.
Meanwhile, the newspaper struggled to get its reporting out. For much of August, its most recently posted online story was from early July. It has recently published new stories from freelancers. Offering young journalists a shot at their first published piece is how Tecolote has long survived.
Carrasco pointed this out in her statement to Mission Local. The newspaper, she wrote, is “staffed to continue serving the community,” listing a freelance team of 10 reporters, 10 photojournalists, a copy editor and a lay-out designer.
Oliver, the former board member, was far from sanguine. “The board, and particularly its founders, are driving away their most valuable talent. This constant employee churn is expensive, alarms funders, and breeds internal strife.”
The upheaval, she wrote, was “a call to action” for an “essential institution.”
