Behind The Scenes of the L.A. Times Buyout Drive
Veteran Los Angeles Times staffers looked at Page One today and believed the company had sent them a strong message, on this, the long-awaited day when buyouts were announced in the newsroom.
Encircling Page One, an all-enveloping American Airlines ad, which left room for three stories on the page, and showed a proud AA tail jutting upward. It was a plain message, say some long-time newsroom staffers, half tongue-in-cheek: It’s time to leave. (The Times was saved a major problem after an AA plane safely landed this morning after one of the pilots died en route; the potential juxtaposition of prominent airline ads and crashes is the stuff of many a publisher nightmare.)
In two memos today, Tribune Publishing outlined both the rationale for the buyout — “the company must continue to execute on its strategic plan, which includes reducing costs” — its terms. Those terms are richer than previous Times buyouts have been — and indicate whom the company needs to take them up on the buyouts if they are to make their numbers: a large exodus of veteran staff.
Significantly, the memo was signed by Tribune CEO Jack Griffin – and not by new L.A. Times publisher Tim Ryan.
First published at Politico Media
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Ryan had been appointed by Griffin in early September, after Griffin fired Austin Beutner and set off a firestorm of protest in Los Angeles and intensified doubting of the Tribune’s own transformation plan.
While Tribune has made the point strenuously that decisions about employee reduction programs are part of a publisher’s (and not corporate’s) remit, here CEO Griffin falls on the sword – or takes credit. Griffin may attempt to avoid the further targeting of new publisher Ryan, as today’s job cuts will only more greatly inflame those who have called for Tribune to sell the Times to local owners, led by businessman Eli Broad. Or, in the very public push to reduce costs, he may be showing his mettle to those investors that have doubted his financial projections.
Today’s buyout offer is capped at 52 weeks total. Staffers with 28 or more years of employment get the 52 weeks. The buyout schedule below (and linked to):
Pay schedule:
• 1-10 years of service = 1 week base pay for each year.
• 11-20 years of service = 2 weeks base year (for years 11-20).
• 21-27 years of service = 3 weeks base year (for years 21-27).
• 28+ years of service = 52 weeks of base pay.
Such caps are not unusual in the now almost-decade long history of newspaper company buyout offers.
This buyout is noticeably richer than some previous L.A. Times offers, going back several years. Those buyouts were sometimes limited to one week of pay per year of employment overall.
One further sweetener: Those older than 55 with at least 10 years of service who take the offer are eligible for the Retiree Health Care plan, a program that Tribune says will accept no new enrollees after Dec. 31.
Two or perhaps three masthead editors are expected to take buyouts, as well as a number from the paper’s cadre of well-known columnists and writers.
Between 50 and 80 job positions – the final number depending on the budget savings from the positions cut — will be eliminated. Disproportionately, veterans will likely be among those leaving.
“The old-school journalists will be the ones to take this deal,” says one veteran staffer.
There are a number of reasons for this, and some of them are interconnected.
If the buyout package is indeed richer than previous ones, that impetus leads to an “it’s time” thinking. Staff writers also find non-Times job opportunities greater than at any other time in the last 10 years, as the L.A. economy has recovered and non-daily jobs are more numerous.
Then, there’s the sense the business has changed too much. Like many newsrooms, the Times is moving strongly forward with a digital-first transformation, offering new training in digital skills. While some see the need for that, in the abstract, they don’t necessarily want to take part. That airline ad format on Page One – a format that former publisher Beutner had rejected — also signals to some that the old business is gone, as the line between editorial and advertising gets tested in ways that make them uncomfortable.
Finally, while some had some hope of a L.A. Times revival, under Austin Beutner’s civic-first strategy, his removal removed that as well.
This buyout result is both completely comprehensible and confounding, for those following the vicissitudes of modern journalism.
Hundreds of years of Los Angeles-area and beat-specific knowledge will walk out the door by year’s end, a story we’ve seen endlessly retold across American newsrooms.
At the same time—depending on budget savings overall – the Times will move to “reskill.” In that sense, the now-simmering fire of ownership and management of the Times (and sister San Diego Union-Tribune) has only obscured and retarded the wider need to smartly retool newsrooms for the audiences, devices and habits of our time.
Such reskilling, as is now moving forward at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, requires a deft hand. The aim: make up for real loss of traditional journalistic experience with a real gain in digital journalism skill.
At the L.A. Times, it’s essential to remember the context. At 500, this is a newsroom that still stands as one of the top five in number in the U.S. While down from a height of about 1200, and 900 just six years ago, its capacity still is deep. The paper – and site and apps – still drives much of the L.A. news day, though it a much more splintered fashion. As its ranks have winnowed through successive buyouts and layoffs, newsroom observers note a “hollowing out.” While many of the longer-time veterans have held on – and now may leave – many Times journalists with ten to 20 years experience have left over the years. That’s left a newsroom with a mix of quite veteran and quite younger staff. They’ve undoubtedly created a different mix of journalism than of previous decades, and now that mix will soon change a lot again.
Consider today’s buyout step one in the Times’ staff reduction process.
As Tribune CEO Jack Griffin and publisher Tim Ryan decide how much they need to cut expenses to bring it in line with new earnings promises made to Wall Street, they must meet a dollar savings number in the Times’ newsroom and enterprise. Consequently, Oct. 23 – the date by which those wanting to take the buyout must commit —-will now be the next calendar day to circle.
