Sandra Guzman was quietly dismissed from her position as associate editor
last week for reasons that are being hotly debated by personnel inside the
company. An official statement from the New York Post, provided to the
Huffington Post, said that her job was terminated once the paper ended the
section she was editing.

"Sandra is no longer with The Post because the monthly in-paper insert,
Tempo, of which she was the editor, has been discontinued."

Employees at the paper -- which is one of media mogul's Rupert Murdoch's
crown jewels -- said the firing, which took place last Tuesday, seemed
retributive.

Guzman was the most high-profile Post employee to publicly speak out
against a cartoon that likened the author of the stimulus bill (whom
nearly everyone associated with President Barack Obama) with a rabid
primate. Drawn by famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, the illustration pictured
two befuddled policeman -- having just shot the chimp twice in the chest --
saying: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus
bill."

"I neither commissioned or approved it," Guzman wrote to a list of
journalist colleagues shortly thereafter. "I saw it in the paper yesterday
with the rest of the world. And, I have raised my objections to
management."

The remark from Guzman was a rare instance of dissension within the halls
of the paper making its way into the public domain. And sources at the
Post now say it cost her a job.

"I think ever since then, she has been on their shit list and they were
trying to look for a reason to get rid of her," said a Post employee who
was granted anonymity in exchange for speaking freely. The problem at the
Post is a revenue problem, the employee said. "My whole thing is, she is
not in charge of advertising. She is an associate editor. Whoever is in
accounting or advertising should have been held accountable."

Another longtime employee at the paper said Guzman had a sense that she
could lose her job over her remarks. "But it doesn't make it any less
painful."

"The irony there is that the newspaper isn't making money," said a
longtime employee at the paper. "They haven't for a while... There was
definitely room to keep her here without firing her. She could have been
offered another position."

Suzi Halpin, a spokesperson for the Post who works at Rubenstein
Communications, Inc., dismissed any allegations that Guzman's cartoon
criticism played a role in her dismissal.

"The statement from the paper explains the reason why Sandra is no longer
there," she said.

Post employees said that Guzman's firing also raised questions about
minority representation in top management. Guzman had been, until Tuesday,
the only woman of color on the paper's management staff. And according to
one of the longtime Post employees, there has been only one African-
American editor at the paper in the last decade.

"The hiring practices are really bad and have been for most of the time
I've been here," said the employee. "Since I've been here there have been
as many black editors as there have been black presidents of the United
States.."

Guzman's firing came shortly after Murdoch is said to have held a meeting
of leaders from a variety of ethnic communities to discuss ways to make
his various companies -- including The Post -- more diverse.

Guzman did not return a request for comment.