By: Joe Strupp About a month after The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., announced it would need 200 employees to take buyouts or the newspaper could be sold, the paper is falling short of getting enough newsroom takers with less than a month to go before the Oct. 1 deadline.
Editor Jim Willse and Publisher George Arwady have not commented on how many staffers have applied for the buyouts first offered July 31. But several staffers say the overall 200-person number may have been met, but the unofficial call for about 100 newsroom staffers is not being reached.
In an e-mail to one reporter who had sought information about the buyout offer, Arwady indicated that newsroom buyout applicants had been on the low side.
"At this time I have no update to give you on our buyouts thus far, except to tell you that the newsroom has a long way to go to reach the goal that Jim announced," Arwady wrote to reporter Ron Marsico on Sunday in an e-mail that has circulated throughout the paper. "As I've said repeatedly, people should make decisions about the buyout offer based on what's right for them."
Marsico referred calls about the e-mail to Arwady, who has not responded Wednesday to requests for comment.
The paper has also said that several non-editorial unions must agree to changes in their contracts, along with the buyouts, to keep the paper under current ownership. The Star-Ledger has no newsroom union.
In other recent e-mails to Arwady, Marsico also touched on concerns shared by several staffers who spoke with E&P that the buyout offer at the Star-Ledger -- one year's salary -- is less than those at The Oregonian of Portland and The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, which are also owned by Advance Publications.
"George: Has the Newhouse family explained to you why there appear to be significant differences between the buyout packages offered the staffs of The Star-Ledger, Oregonian and Plain Dealer?" Marsico wrote in an e-mail Aug. 26 to Arwady. "If so, I believe it would be helpful for the reasons to be explained to the Ledger's employees. Thanks. -- Ron."
Arwady's response: "Thanks for asking. Advance is an unusual company. Each newspaper's situation is different because it has a different market, different history, different competition, different cost structures and different benefit situations. All large newspapers have been hurt significantly by the severe decline in revenue, but neither The Plain Dealer nor The Oregonian has been experiencing the severe losses that the Star-Ledger has over the last several years. Therefore, a higher buyout incentive could be justified in those newspapers than here.
"As you also may know, compensation levels here are unusually high. Therefore, a year's pay and bonus here is significantly more than a year's pay and bonus elsewhere. For what it's worth, neither Jim Willse nor I nor anyone else in management here had the slightest inkling that The Oregonian would offer buyouts at this time, nor that they were going to be structured differently than ours. The newspapers really are treated as separate companies."
The Oregonian, which announced its buyout offer in August, is seeking about 100 takers, 50 in the newsroom. That paper is providing two-year's salary for those who leave. At The Plain Dealer, which is seeking an undisclosed number of takers, buyout packages are different based on years of service, with some top veteran staffers getting 18 months pay.
Advance Publications President Donald Newhouse, who spoke with E&P Wednesday, declined to comment on how the buyout effort at the Star-Ledger is going, saying only "we'll know at the end of the month, that is when we will know where we stand."
Asked about how the Star-Ledger situation might affect other Advance papers, Newhouse said, "each of the papers are separate and individual. Each of the papers faces their own problems."
Newhouse added that outsiders should not look at the Star-Ledger's situation and assume other Advance papers are facing potential sales. "The Ledger faces problems that we have communicated to our employees and that is specific to the Ledger," he explained. "You cannot draw any conclusions about any other newspapers we have based on what is special to the Ledger."
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