Diena is covering the walkout story on its website even after escorting the resigning journalists from their offices with security guards.

RIGA — Staff disgruntlement at Diena, one of Latvia’s most popular dailies, boiled over Friday as the two top editors and 12 journalists quit due to a lack of trust in the paper’s new management and ownership.

The situation at the paper had been tenuous for months since an announcement that the paper, along with Dienas Biznes, another daily, had been purchased by an unnamed foreign investor. But after a meeting Friday with managing director Alexandrs Tralmaks, Diena’s top editors finally decided that their vision of the paper’s future did not coincide with that of Tralmaks and the owner — whom Tralmaks finally named as the Rowland family from England.

“I believe that the current owner of Diena is not working as a quality media interest and therefore submitted my resignation,” Nellija Ločmele, chief editor of the Dienas Medijii publisher, said, according to the paper’s website. In addition Diena’s editor-in-chief Anita Brauna and opinion page editor Pauls Raudseps, a U.S. citizen, also resigned. According to the last count, another 11 journalists had quit the paper, the website reported.

The sudden exodus at what is arguably Latvia’s most influential paper, at a time when Latvia is suffering its worst economic crisis since gaining independence in 1991, came like a bolt out of the blue at the end of an arduous week for the Baltic state. For many Diena had represented a beacon of integrity in country known for unscrupulous journalism. Diena also set itself apart by fighting for things like rights of sexual minorities, a subject most dailies in Latvia wouldn’t dare go near.

“The outcome was inevitable,” Aivars Ozoliņš, a leading journalist at the paper, told Baltic Reports. “We had hoped for the best. We tried to maintain high standards of journalism, but from what we saw from the new ownership over the past three months was just bluff.”

Ločmele said the paper, one of Latvia’s two leading dailies by print-run, had been running on two legs — ad revenues and subscription. The financial crisis cut off one leg, and the paper’s new owners “are trying to stop the bleeding by applying pressure at the neck.” She and other journalists were dissatisfied that the name of the paper’s new owners had been kept from them for three months. For the staff of Diena, a paper that for nearly two decades prided itself on transparency and openness, this secrecy was unacceptable. Ozoliņš told Baltic Reports that staff members tried to contact the Rowland family in England before quitting but were unsuccessful.

“The main thing is that our values don’t correspond with those of the new management,” he said. “Also, it seemed to some of the people on the staff that his [Tralmaks’] business propositions are not sound.” In his words, the new cost-cutting plan for the paper included a 40 percent pay cut for staff despite previous reductions.

Tralmaks was quoted as saying that the essential issue was not about who was the editor but about whether Diena and other publications were making a profit or loss, and currently the operation was in the red. Last year the Diena group of publications posted 22.9 million lats (€32.5 million) in sales, down 11 percent year-on-year, and finished the year with a loss of 1.8 million lats (€2.5 million).

The Baltic News Service reported that, according to Tralmaks, the Rowlands are a U.K. family with businesses that include the Blackfish Group, which provides investment management and consultations to private clients. Diena reported that the acting editor would become Dace Andersone, who is currently the editor in chief of Dienas Bizness.

Meanwhile Ločmele said that she planned to rest for a while and decide what she would do later. There is speculation that the staff has already located a potential investor and may create a new publication.