Gatehouse offering buyouts

Months after purchasing the Austin American-Statesman, Gatehouse is offering company wide buyouts.

Gatehouse Media Offering Voluntary Severance Package to SJ-R Employees

 

The link is to buyouts at the paper in Springfield, Illinois. Is Jacksonville also going through another round of buyouts?

 

I assume it is company-wide. Was sent my offer on Monday with a Friday deadline as well.

 

Is the initial buyout offer EVER any better than standard severance? I can remember only one time --- in 2007, when my shop offered one-year salary buyouts --- when taking the buyout offered a better deal than getting laid off. And there were no layoffs at my shop in 2007; they didn't start until June 2008.

 

It's company wide.

 

GateHouse cut 12 positions in January and did not offer any of those people buy-outs.

 

A year after leaving GateHouse, I still regard the decision to do so as one of my best career moves. Now I work with people who actually respect me and my work. And for that, I actually care about doing a good job. It's as it should be.

 

No buyouts have been offered yet at the shop I am familiar with.

 

Journalism? Or something else?

 

Still in journalism. Though I am exploring options outside of journalism.

 

Yes it's not GateHouse's style to offer buyouts. Have they offered any or not? They simply lay people off, right?

To the suits on here ... do you envision a time when the sports staffs of all Gatehouse papers and other chains, big cities and small, will be forced to be sports editors who cover events? I'm thinking if those folks want to stay employed, at some point they are going to have to produce content as well as run the operation. I'm thinking most news organizations have cut about as many people as they can conceivably cut.

 

It is like that in some of their places now, so why wouldn't it continue