The Journal News reportedly laid off an editor involved with its gun map. (Credit: Journal News' instagram, screenshot)

Caryn McBride was laid off from the New York Journal News this month, the Rockland County Times reported. 

As iMediaEthics has written, the Journal News published a controversial gun map identifying local residents who had gun permits and their addresses within days of the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school shootings. The newspaper defended the map from lots of complaints and even said it was receiving threats after a local blogger retaliated and posted personal information about newspaper staff. At the time, McBride contacted the police about the “angry” response the newspaper received and ended up hiring armed guards, which led to further criticism of the hypocrisy of not including its own armed guards on the map.  Ultimately the paper took the identifying information down but denied it was caving to criticism.

The Rockland Times reported that McBride was one of “26 total staffers” at the paper to be laid off, but suggested her dismissal probably wasn’t because of the gun map:

“There is no indication the gun map played a role in the layoffs, however the controversy may have had an effect on the Journal News’ bottom line as multitudes of subscribers bailed on the daily paper.”

iMediaEthics has written to CynDee Royle, editor and vice president for news for  the Journal News, seeking confirmation of McBride being laid off and the total number of staff laid off. We’ve also asked if McBride’s firing had anything to do with the gun map. We received an auto-reply re-directing us to the paper’s Donna Ferri, who we reached out to. We’ll update with any response.