Washington Post Will Further Reduce Staff Marcus W. Brauchli, who became executive editor in 2008, informed staff members of the buyouts in an e-mail that said the cutbacks were necessary to help keep The Post competitive in such a difficult economic climate for newspapers. The memo said the buyouts would be voluntary, and did not specify the number of reductions the paper was seeking. But one person familiar with the process said an internal target of 20 people was set. "Any measure like this is difficult," Mr. Brauhcli wrote. But we believe this approach is a sensible and effective way of addressing the economic forces affecting our industry. We constantly rethink how we do certain things in order to become more efficient, agile and competitive; this will require more such thinking. He added: "The Post's Newsroom remains formidable, and we will continue making tactical hires so that even as we get smaller, we get stronger." The Post, like most other big metropolitan newspapers, has struggled to overcome the decline in classified and other local advertising revenue as more business has shifted to online advertising. And while traffic on The Post's Web site is up significantly - thanks to a new series of blogs and features on subjects like entertainment news that were not traditionally part of the paper's coverage - the difficulties persist. Compounding the problems, the parent Washington Post Company has also hit a rough patch, making the problems at its venerable newspaper all the more urgent to address. Kaplan, the once-booming for-profit college business that the Post Company owns, has seen its enrollment plummet because of tighter federal education guidelines. And it no longer makes up the largest or even the second largest pool of income for the company. The full memo to the staff follows: To the staff: Today, we are announcing that we will offer a voluntary buyout to some Newsroom employees. Our objective is a limited staff reduction that won't affect the quality, ambition or authority of our journalism. We believe this is possible, given the changes in how we work and the great successes we have had building our digital readership lately. To preserve that momentum, we do not intend to offer this program to every department or individual in the Newsroom. The reality is that we're able to absorb staffing changes better in some areas than in others. In those departments where we do offer the buyout, there will be caps on the number of people who can participate, in order to moderate the impact and preserve our competitiveness in core coverage areas. In addition, we may turn down some volunteers if we feel their departure would impair our journalism. That said, it is important that we achieve real savings. The exact details of the buyout, technically a voluntary Separation Incentive Program, will come later, after the company talks to the Guild about its proposed terms. Here's what we can tell you now: The program does not accelerate pension benefits. It will include enhanced separation payments and company-paid COBRA (health insurance) premiums for eligible fulltime employees. Post representatives will be discussing the proposed program with the Guild over the next two weeks, consistent with the terms of the labor contract. The terms they agree on also will be included in an offer to Newsroom editors in eligible departments. This program will be available for a specified period of time only; employees will have 45 days to study this offer and decide whether to accept it or decline it. The Post will schedule the final date of employment for those who elect to resign as part of this program; for most employees this will mean a resignation date of May 31, 2012. Any measure like this is difficult. The Post's Newsroom remains formidable, and we will continue making tactical hires so that even as we get smaller, we get stronger. We plan to distribute SIP packages to eligible employees in a few weeks. We will have two Town Hall meetings today, at 11 a.m. in the Community Room and at 4:30 p.m. in the Auditorium, to answer your questions.