Rochelle Riley (Photo: Facebook)
Longtime Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley is among eight staffers to take buyouts as part of a cost-savings move by the paper's parent company, Gannett.
Crain's reported the news Friday afternoon after speaking with Free Press editor Peter Bhatia. Bhatia wouldn't say who else took a buyout, but confirmed that longtime Free Press sportswriter Perry Farrell accepted an early retirement offer late last year.
The buyouts spare seven Newspaper Guild staffers from layoffs.
The paper will now do some shuffling to plug holes left by the latest wave of cuts.
Crain's obtained a memo sent by Bhatia to staff:
"Senior managers will be meeting next week to contemplate the reshaping of the newsroom to get at coverage topics we must and how we best organize to run a smaller newsroom. Through unfilled openings, early retirement and layoff volunteers we will lose at least 11 positions," he wrote.
"Our goals remain the same: create unique, in-depth journalism of significant impact and grow our digital audience. We must do more in both areas this year. I look to our auto reporters as a model. Audience there is up more than 90 percent year over year and we break story after story on the automakers as well as doing great investigative work such as the Death on Foot project."
His memo also touched on expenses.
"As you'd figure, the 2019 budget is extremely tight. We've shaved expenses as much as we could to protect jobs. Please don't assume that something we have paid for in the past will automatically be paid for now. This ranges from subscriptions/dues and equipment/supplies to travel, meals and conferences. We need to hoard our non-payroll funds for news coverage," he wrote.
