Romenesko+ Memos
The Washington Post union told its members earlier today about the paper not renewing leases on some suburban bureaus. Post editors have now sent a memo to their staff. “With the savings from ending unnecessarily expensive leases, we will invest in technology that will enable us to file from anywhere, at any time, to any platform,” they say.
From: Marcus Brauchli
Date: Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 3:33 PM
Subject: Suburban offices
To: NEWS – All Newsroom
Colleagues, you will have heard reports that we have decided not to renew leases on some of our suburban offices when they come up starting next year. This is about office space, not personnel or coverage. We are doing this because we have more space than we use in many places, not because we are retrenching. Indeed, we may decide in some cases to take smaller offices in the same communities, and we will retain our existing bureaus in Richmond and Annapolis. With the savings from ending unnecessarily expensive leases, we will invest in technology that will enable us to file from anywhere, at any time, to any platform. We are maintaining staffing levels in the suburbs. In addition, reporters from our 15th Street newsroom continue to cover regional stories.
The backdrop here, as most of you know, is that we have been investing in regional coverage recently. We have rebuilt our schools team and now have staff reporters on each of the major districts in our area. We have added
top-end bloggers covering Fairfax and Montgomery Counties, as well as the District. We’ve just launched On Faith Local, a supplement to our very successful On Faith site, focused on religion in this area. And we’ve started TheRootDC.com, a terrific new site that’s covering the African-American community across the region.Re-assessing our need for leased space in the suburbs will have no adverse impact on our coverage of the region and will, rather, create savings that will ultimately benefit our readers.
Marcus
Liz
Raju
Vernon
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