70 Members of 'Wash Post' News Staff Accept Buyouts

By: Joe Strupp Some 70 newsroom staffers at The Washington Post, including reporters, editors, and photographers, will take the paper's buyout offer, the Post reported Thursday.

In a story posted today, the paper also noted that "some familiar and veteran bylines will exit The Post's pages, such as those of political writer Thomas B. Edsall, science writer Guy Gugliotta, foreign correspondent Daniel Williams, Metro reporter (and panda chronicler) D'Vera Cohn, and business columnists Jerry Knight and Leslie Walker."

The Post also reported that well-known television critic Tom Shales and Metro columnist Courtland Milloy would exit under the buyout, but remain for a while under contract arrangements.

The buyout was offered to newsroom employees who are at least 54 and have 10 years of service at the paper, the Post reported. Each was eligible for up to two years of full-time pay and benefits in exchange for departing the paper prior to the retirement age.

Tuesday was the deadline for the early retirement program, but anyone who chose to leave with the deal has a week to change his or her mind, the Post said. The paper reported that another 100 employees outside the newsroom, such as those in the newspaper's pressrooms or on the advertising staff, also took the offer.

"This offering allows the news and business departments to reorganize their staffs in ways that work well today," Post publisher Boisfeuillet Jones Jr. said in Thursday's paper.

The Post story on the buyouts also stated that "for many Post staffers, the buyouts offer a chance to start second careers at a youthful age or pursue hobbies while receiving a steady pension check. Walker, the Business section's technology columnist, for instance, will work to finish a novel she started last year. Gugliotta's wife, Carla Anne Robbins, recently accepted a job writing editorials for the New York Times. They will move to the New York City region, and he will freelance. Horse aficionado Alison Howard, a Metro editor, will start an equestrian-services business with friends."

The paper noted that the cutbacks were part of many such cost-saving efforts at daily papers, where circulation slides have become routine. It cited its own such drop, which has reduced the daily circulation level from a peak of 832,232 in 1993 to 690,700 in the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations FAS-FAX report.

"Our newsroom has grown a lot over a number of years, in both size of staff and other expenses," Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said in today's paper. "And as circulation has declined some and advertising revenue has leveled off at the moment, and we continue to have to pay higher costs for travel and those sorts of things and continue to give raises to members of our staff, we had to find some way to reduce the overall size of the newsroom."

Downie added that this year's newsroom budget is about the same as last year, but is expected to shrink next year. He said no plans are in place for layoffs.

The Post reported that the latest buyout is the second such offer in the past three years. In 2003, 54 staffers took a similar offer, but many were offered contracts to work part of the year without benefits, the paper said.