Don Bauder first reported it last Friday, when only 15 to 20 positions were going to be cut, but now it’s official: the San Diego Union-Tribune has announced a massive buyout plan, with 43 newsroom positions and more throughout the company targeted.
As Bauder reports,
The plan is called “voluntary separation program,” or VSP, but in the memo, U-T president Gene Bell warns, “Please note that the level of employee participation in the voluntary program will determine the extent of future involuntary separations.” In other words, it’s better to have your hand chopped off now lest your head gets lopped later.
VoiceofSanDiego.com’s Rob Davis gave a breakdown of the cuts as “nine metro reporters (from a pool that one newsroom source estimated at 75), three columnists, three critics, two photographers and 12 editors or supervisors.” Davis added that 40 non-newsroom positions will be eliminated.
This particular section of his story caught my eye:
Some employees are not eligible for the buyouts, an indication of the newspaper’s core strategy for future news coverage. Its environment and politics reporters, breaking news team, computer-assisted reporting specialists, sports columnists, copy editors and editorial cartoonist cannot take the buyout. Nor can employees of its Internet site, SignOnSanDiego.com.
“You can see what they’re saying they still value,” [Dean] Nelson [director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University] said. “And they’re obviously saying we can no longer be covering all things about this town. The fact that SignOn is protected I think says a lot. Because that’s where the future is.”
I would say it’s pretty rare that a newspaper that’s cutting more than 80 positions due to cost-saving concerns has built-in protections that suggest a high priority on editorial cartooning.