Bay Area Buyouts

Editor & Publisher reports that staffers at the Oakland Tribune, the Contra Costa Times, and the other 22 dailies and weeklies in the Bay Area News Group-East Bay were recently offered an opportunity to apply for voluntary buyouts.
The group, which is part of MediaNews Group, Gannett Co. and Stephens Media's California Newspapers Partnership, must save an undisclosed amount of money. If these buyouts don't achieve that goal, President/Publisher John Armstrong said there would most likely be involuntary layoffs.
"Almost without exception, real estate forecasters believe the Bay Area will be saddled with a housing slump for 12 to 18 months, and talk of a recession is now commonplace," Armstrong said in a statement, which was included in the E&P report. "We have concluded we must reduce our operating expenses quickly, and we cannot get where we need to be without reducing the size of the workforce."
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