Buyouts at the Star-Ledger

Yet another Newhouse newspaper has offered buyouts employees as a way to shrink the payroll. The Star-Ledger in New Jersey wants 50 people to "voluntarily" leave their jobs to avoid the possibility of layoffs, the New York Times reports.

Here's a portion of the memo from Publisher George Arwady:

Full-time, non-represented employees can apply to receive 2 weeks’ pay for every year of completed service, capped at 26 weeks’ pay, along with medical coverage for the severance period. The newspaper reserves the right to reject applications based upon business needs.

We sincerely hope that we meet our staffing goals through this voluntary buyout offer. If we do not, we will need to resort to other ways of reducing our employee costs, which could include involuntary layoffs.

The paper eliminated 150 positions through buyouts last year.

Elsewhere in the Newhouse chain (aka Advance Publications)...

The New Orleans Times-Picayune recently made all employees eligible for a buyout package equal to one year's salary.

The Oregonian's interim publisher released a buyout plan last month and hinted strongly that layoffs would follow if too few people took the offer. To wit: "If a significant number of you accept the offer it could minimize or eliminate the need for layoffs down the line." The interim publisher did not say how many jobs were on the line but set a deadline of November 9 for employees to accept a buyout.

Cuts, consolidation and reorganization at the Oregonian

With a buyout offer on the table and the specter of layoffs looming, the executive editor of the Oregonian newspaper yesterday released a memo - obtained by Oregon Media Central - that outlines a major restructuring of the paper's newsroom.

From the memo:

We are committed to the principles and values that have defined print journalism and will not shirk our responsibility to serve as a watchdog on government and the powerful. At the same time, we need to evolve our journalism, embrace the two-way nature of the Web world and be even more responsive to a public that expects more of a conversation with us.

-snip-

We will not abandon our foundation of beat reporting, but beats will be redefined along areas of expertise of most interest to our readers. Some beats will be eliminated because with fewer people we cannot cover everything that we have in the past.

The smaller newsroom will be split into two parts. The first, with between 60 and 70 staffers, will focus on "local expertise and enterprise reporting." The second, with about 40 reporters and editors, including interns, will focus on "community." There will also be an "editing and producing" hub that will endeavor to push stories out onto the web more quickly with fewer rigid deadlines. As with most newspaper cuts these days, the change also means fewer copy editors and designers to check quality. Again, from the memo:

We also need to streamline editing operations and simplify newspaper production since we will be losing many copy editors and designers. We must move toward “one-touch editing.”

In addition, all photographers and photo editors will need to be trained in both still and video.

The Oregonian is owned by the Newhouse family, which operates the paper through its Advance Publications company. Advance also runs Condé Nast Publications, which recently shuttered Gourmet and Portfolio magazines and which has made significant cuts to many of its other magazine operations. Advance newspapers include the New Orleans Times Picayune, Cleveland Plain Dealer and New Jersey Star-Ledger. The Times-Picayune recently offered buyouts to all employees.