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Globe offering buyouts to some employees

UPDATE: Dan Kennedy quotes a memo from Globe Editor Brian McGrory that the buyouts probably won't reduce headcount.

Boston Globe CEO Mike Sheehan sent out one of those rightsizing memos to his troops today - just as arts reporter Geoff Edgers leaves for the Washington Post and business reporter Erin Ailworth departs for the Wall Street Journal. Here's a copy:

Over the past two years, there have been a number of significant changes at the Boston Globe: a new owner, a new editor, and new leadership in a number of departments. Since January 2013, we've added a number of new people as well -- 250, to be precise. These key hires are helping us create a media property whose commitment to excellence in journalism is second to none in New England, and on par with the best in the business globally. They've allowed us to improve the quality of our offerings across the board and to introduce initiatives like Address and Capital in print, a re-imagined boston.com, plus Betaboston.com and Crux, the new Catholic digital site which will launch in a few weeks. On the business side, our efforts are paying off -- after the first six months of 2014, our circulation and advertising revenue are both ahead of plan, which reflects the enthusiasm of readers, visitors, and advertisers.

Our mission of creating award-winning journalism that's "aggressively interesting" is only realized if we create a business model that's sound and eminently sustainable. To reposition our business for the future, we have decided to offer some employees a buyout, voluntary in nature, the terms of which are generous by any standard. These employees will receive a letter at home over the next few days outlining specific terms.

We will continue to adapt and change, to stay ahead of the market and our competitors. We will continue to recruit and hire and explore new initiatives. But we will do so with financial discipline and rigor.

While the letters will be detailed and thorough, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me, your supervisor, or anyone in Human Resources.

All the best,

Mike

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Comments

Maybe if we're lucky, they'll buy out Shaugnessy, Gasper, Manza-Young, Abraham, Voilin and Sullivan. I'm hard pressed to think of any aspect of the sports section which isn't better handled by other outlets.

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And give him a raise, and a place for his blog that's less wasteland-y than boston.com.

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If they buy out Shaughnessy, where will I get my quadrennial "World Cup soccer drools and baseball rules" column?

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Its a bit like the Airport Traffic on Thanksgiving story they run every year. Or the Drop Kick Murphy's concert on St. Patricks Day story.

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Dan racks up another year on his contract every time the haters comment on him. Who else in Boston media gets people talking about him so much? It doesn't matter what you think of him. They would be insane to cut him loose.

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Until he got fired.

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The Metro Boston Herald Globe Phoenix Traveler Tab?

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John Henry is getting rid of employees across his empire.

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They would be better off firing all the Boston.com staff to save money and shutting down the website. . They have successfully managed to trash what was once a fantastic website. Since Henry came along, all the good stuff has been moved over to BostonGlobe.com and there is nothing left but click bait and a crazy guy in the comments section with 100 accounts copying and pasting right wing talking points on every article, regardless of its content.

Their loss is Universal Hubs gain I guess.

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Amen!

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I'm no fan of the Boston Globe but now that it isn't entirely paywalled bostonglobe.com has become at least a tolerable site. It is only useful for state news seeing as how they suck at local coverage and only reprint AP for national coverage.

But I agree, whatever they are spending on Boston.com is a total waste. Redirect to bostonglobe.com and be done.

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Anyone with half a brain knows you can delete the BostonGlobe cookie and keep reading.

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"Their loss is Universal Hub's gain." It is for me, at least. I don't bother with BDC any more. It's just awful. UHub has better local coverage and less insane commenters.

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I had enough of the crap stories with the auto loading videos.

Nothing worse than being in your office pretending to work when a video starts blaring from your PC.

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I installed a Flash blocker plug-in on my browser specifically because of those auto-play videos. Ridiculous.

And I agree with other posters. The interns and other flunkies who now run BDC took what was a terrific breaking-news site and turned it into a poorly edited piece of junk.

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Glenn Yoder, editor of BDCwire and sports editor of Boston.com

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Journalism covering our Boston metro area could advocate for FOI Freedom Of Information public records principles and Sunshine open public meetings. More Boston area journalists needed in the spirit of I.F. Stone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.F._Stone

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At the least, reporters could stop rewriting BPD press releases.

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