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.

Goodbye, hello

What David Carr's story about a reporter who left the Star-Ledger in New Jersey to become a flak and then returned to the paper to become a political columnist tells us, beyond the fact that Thomas Moran, at 52, found out he still wanted at a newspaper job, I don't know. But its interesting to note that the Star-Ledger laid off 40 percent of its staff a year ago and then, in July, had to respond to a massive corruption scandal. Maybe the paper suddenly realized the value of institutional memory. Maybe the layoffs gave the paper the margin to hire a few more bodies, meaning the bleeding has stopped. Or maybe Moran just didn't want to be a flak anymore and got lucky with an opening.

Buyouts buy time to try online

The newsroom purge last fall at the Star-Ledger in New Jersey has spawned a website, newjerseynewsroom.com, run by about 40 former staffers - all of them took lucrative buyouts from owner Advance Publications, aka Newhouse. The site is a mix of original reporting and links, some provided through a deal with Voice of America, Editor and Publisher reports.

None of the writers are being paid just yet. It was the buyouts that have provided the cushion to allow the start up to keep going, according to former sports writer Matt Romanoski. From E&P:

Romanoski says the beauty of the start-up is that contributors can work without pay, to start, and rely on their buyout payments. Some have outside jobs and contribute one or two stories per week.

"No one is being paid as of now, we are giving equity and hoping to secure revenue," he said.