The Business Journal reports that The Charlotte Observer offered a voluntary “buyout” program to many of its employees this morning. The new cuts come on top of previous fairly severe cuts in staff. The new buyouts will, according to the BizJournal story by Erik Spanberg, include “most newsroom staffers.”
This development doesn’t mean there’s a new round of layoffs, but it does indicate that the daily paper is still losing money hand over fist and is looking for volunteers to bite the bullet. If that doesn’t happen, publisher Ann Caulkins told Spanberg, the paper will “look at cost-cutting measures that are non-people-related.” Read the full story here.
This article appears in Oct 13-20, 2009.
