by Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 10, 2006; 6:26 PM
The Washington Post Co. today announced plans to eliminate the equivalent of 80 newsroom positions over the next year by offering an early retirement plan to eligible employees and through attrition of full and part-time employees.
Newsroom managers told employees in staff-by-staff meetings today that the cuts were part of an overall effort to reduce costs while at the same time implement editorial changes to improve the Post's ability to reach audiences in multiple media. The plan does not include any layoffs in the 900-employee newsroom.
"The upcoming retirement incentive programs are voluntary and will be designed to allow employees -- basically those whose functions will not have to be replaced or can be reassigned -- to retire this year with enhanced retirement benefits," said Post publisher and chief executive Boisfeuillet "Bo" Jones Jr., in an e-mail sent to the newsroom. "They will be offered selectively, only where the newspaper can save costs. These programs do not involve layoffs.
"Like many newspapers suffering from declining circulation, the Post's revenue has remained flat for several years and its paid subscribers have declined 4 percent a year. Downie told employees that the Post is doing better, financially, than many of its competitors.
"But it is obvious that a significant change is taking place in our readership, with a sizable portion of it migrating to the Internet," he said. Downie said that movement is not necessarily a problem, because the newspaper's Web site is doing well with online advertising, but that the shift is creating a challenge to manage costs and adapt at the same time.
Other cost-cutting measures include the closing of offices that Post foreign correspondents use overseas and eliminating some assistant positions in some of those bureaus. With laptop computers and satellite and cellular phones, many correspondents can work out of their homes, Downie said, and the newspaper is pushing correspondents to become more mobile in their coverage overseas. He added that the Post does not have any plans to eliminate any of its foreign bureaus.
"Most things we're doing, we're doing for journalistic reasons, but where we can also save money while we're doing that, it's just a prudent thing to do," Downie said.
Locally, Downie said the Post is rethinking its suburban weekly sections, called the Extras, in some counties it serves. Downie said the Post has given up its battle with the Baltimore Sun over some turf where the two papers overlapped, particularly in Howard County. He said the paper is now considering merging the Howard and Anne Arundel County Extras and remaking the Post's Metro coverage to include more local stories in the zoned sections on a daily, instead of weekly, basis.