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Topic: Memos Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 9/20/2005 7:08:30 PM
Title: NYT executive editor Bill Keller's memo to staff
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 16:23:01
To: [New York Times newsroom]
From: Bill Keller
Subject: A message to the staff

To the staff:

None of you will be surprised to learn that the economic pressures on our business have been unrelenting. While we’re in better shape economically (and much stronger journalistically) than our competitors, our revenues have not grown sufficiently to keep up with the growing costs of everything the company does.

So this afternoon the company is announcing a significant reduction in staff that will be carried out over the next six to nine months. The numbers are still approximate, but Arthur and Janet estimate that across all of the Times-owned properties the total cut in staff will be about 500 people. As in the past, the deepest cuts will be on the business side. Janet and Arthur are well aware that the journalists make up the great engine of this company’s prosperity and the hope for its future growth. But the newsrooms -- here, at the Globe and elsewhere -- are going to take a hit. I’ve been told that we will be expected to cut about 45 positions in the Times newsroom. To put that in context: that’s about double the number who took the newsroom buyouts offered earlier this summer.

This number was given to me yesterday, so I can’t begin to tell you precisely where those slots will come from. I can say a few things about what this means for us:

First, Janet and Arthur have assured me we will have considerable flexibility in meeting this number. Our aim will be to reduce staff through a combination of voluntary severance deals similar to the ones we did earlier this summer, by curtailing use of temporary employees, and by attrition. This is a serious challenge, and there’s no guarantee, but my hope is that we can bring this off without layoffs.

As a first step to protect the loyal, hard-working staff we have, we are closing the door immediately on new hiring. This freeze will last at least until the end of the year. Of course, we will honor commitments to people who have been offered jobs and have accepted. And, of course, I reserve the right to make exceptions for cases of high priority to the paper. But you should expect the exceptions will be few, if any, and they will be made in consultation with the department heads.

As soon as we have information from the business side about what we can offer in the way of separation packages, we will aim to structure another round of voluntary buyouts. The buyout offers earlier this summer were extended to only a fifth of the newsroom -- areas where we thought the staff reductions would have the least impact. This time we will look at opening the field wider.

We will also look hard for non-payroll spending cuts in the hope that we can, in effect, offer up dollars instead of staff positions. It’s possible that if we can come up with real savings in non-payroll spending we will not have to cut staff by the full 45 slots. We will be looking hard at freelance spending. We will be working with Foreign, National and Bizday to look for opportunities to postpone major relocations of staff, which are hugely expensive. We will work with the department heads to help keep the lid on spending for entertainment, and to make sure overtime and comp time are closely monitored. And so on. Anticipating that 2006 would be an unusually grim budget year, John and Bill Schmidt and our budget minders had already begun looking hard for ways to change some of the things we do in order to minimize the damage of these cuts. We hope to have a detailed plan to take in this notch in our belts within two or three
weeks. In all of this, we will work closely with the department heads to set priorities and to help the newsroom weather this.

I won’t pretend that it will be painless. Between the buyouts earlier this summer and the demands placed on us by the IHT and the Website -- not to mention the heroic commitment we’ve made to covering the aftermath of Katrina -- we don’t have a lot of slack. Like the rest of you, I found the recent spate of retirement parties more saddening than celebratory, both for the obvious personal reasons and because they represented a sapping of our collective wisdom and experience. Throughout these lean years you have worked your hearts out to perform our daily miracle, and I wish I could tell you relief was in sight.

What I can tell you is that we will not retreat, not one inch, from our commitment to put out every day the best news report in the world. We’ll be there, in dazzling form, for the next Katrina, the next international crisis, the next domestic upheaval. We’ll be there putting faces on the changing course of American life, and digging up the stories that won’t get told unless we tell them, and we’ll be telling them with the insight and grace our readers expect. ...

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