Chris Lopez, Paul Feist, Tom Honig, Lynda Gledhill, Kate Folmar and Charlie Goodyear are among the Bay Area journalists who have switched sides and now make a living doing public relations. That’s according to a Bay Guardian story by G.W. Schulz, who says “MediaNews set the trend this year for pushing career journalists into public relations.” MediaNews bought several Bay Area newspapers in 2006 and then proceeded to cut jobs in their newsrooms. Hearst also reduced the size of the Chronicle’s newsroom from roughly 400 to 300 in the past year. Tom Honig stepped down as editor of the Santa Cruz Sentinel in November, saying he hoped his departure would stop MediaNews from making further layoffs. He told his former staff that he wasn’t betraying the values of news reporting by going into public relations: “Just because you’re in public relations does not mean you’re a liar,” the Sentinel quoted Honig as saying. “What I do now is tell people’s stories. This is just another way to tell people’s stories.”