New York Times to cut 100 newsroom jobs by end of year

Posted by Emma Heald on October 20, 2009 at 10:52 AM

The New York Times is planning to cut 100 newsroom positions by the end of the year, it was reported yesterday. Voluntary buyouts will be offered to all on Thursday and if enough people do not take them the paper will start lay-offs.

Times writer Richard Perez-Pena wrote that the 5% pay cut instigated earlier this year was intended to forestall staff reductions, but that "hopes for a year-end turnaround in the newspaper business have faded." Another round of budget cuts will be implemented on the editorial, op-ed and business sides, executive editor Bill Keller wrote in a letter to newsroom employees, published on BNOnews.com.

"In recent years, we've managed to avoid the disabling cutbacks that have hit other newsrooms," wrote Keller. "The company has chosen to protect the journalism by cutting production and other business-side costs, and the newsroom itself has managed its resources frugally." The current number of newsroom employees stands at about 1,250, while no other American newspaper has more than about 750: even after the cut of 100, the Times' newsroom will still be by far the largest.

Keller continued, "I won't pretend that these staff cuts will not in some ways diminish our journalism, or that they will not add to the burdens of journalists whose responsibilities have grown faster than their compensation. But we've been looking hard at ways to minimize the impact -- in part, by re-engineering some of our copy flow."

Employees will have 45 days to decide whether or not to take a buyout, and the paper will then respond within 10 days. Those whose contracts are under the Newspaper Guild would generally be offered three weeks' salary for each year of service, and non-union staff would be offered two weeks.

As the New York Observer pointed out, several of the 465 comments on the NYT's Media Decoder Blog, where Perez-Pena's article was originally posted, discussed paying for the Times' online content. Many readers, concerned by the idea of a shrinking newsroom, urged the paper to start charging online. Others, however, dismissed the idea as unlikely to work. It is something the paper has definitely been considering, but no decision has been publicly announced.

The New York Times is not alone in its decision to lose employees; many newsrooms around the world have been forced to make cuts in order to stay afloat as they suffer from falling advertising revenue. In the US advertising revenue fell 28.6% industry-wide in the first half of this year.

In a country with very few truly national quality newspapers, the fate of the New York Times is all the more important, particularly because the paper is often looked to as an example of what to aspire to. The paper has been investigating different ways to tackle its financial difficulties: as well as looking into introducing paid online content and a membership scheme, the paper has also considered seeking support from foundations. The paper also just launched a San Francisco edition.

Source: New York Times (1), (2), BNOnews.com, New York Observer