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This Just In: Media

The Herald loses two veteran reporters

By Dan Kennedy

Two of the Boston Herald's more accomplished veteran reporters are departing. Ann Donlan, who covers police and breaking news, has already left, and later this month will begin her new job as a press spokeswoman for Attorney General Tom Reilly. And Eric Convey, who reports on the health-care industry for the business section, will leave at the end of next week for a post at the Gloucester Daily Times.

The reasons for their leaving illustrate the problems the Herald -- where reporters and editors put in long hours for considerably less pay than their counterparts at the Boston Globe -- has in holding on to seasoned staff members.

Donlan and management could not reach agreement on her request to change her schedule so that she and her husband, Herald photographer Mike Adaskaveg, could avoid the high child-care costs they incurred on Sundays.

Convey -- no relation to managing editor for features Kevin Convey -- handed in his resignation after a disagreement with business editor Ted Bunker, who objected to Convey's writing religion features for the news section, an arrangement that allowed Convey to earn extra money.

Donlan could not be reached for comment. Convey declined to discuss his departure except to note that he's lived in Gloucester for some time. "This is a lifestyle thing for me," he says.

In fact, managing editor for news Andrew Gully says Convey would have been named the paper's full-time religion reporter "fairly soon" if he had stayed. As for Donlan, Gully says her scheduling problem probably could have been accommodated, though not as quickly as she would have liked. "It's too bad," he says. "We're going to miss her."