Post Buyout Could Cost Big Names

The Post’s buyout package is causing a big stir in the newsroom: Up to ten percent of the newsroom is being readied for early departure, and with the offer as rich as it is, reporters would be almost fools not to take it. “It’s a very generous offer,” tax columnist Al Crenshaw tells Erik Wemple. “They will give me two years’ pay if I work two more years. And they will give me two years’ pay if I don’t work two more years.”

Of course, as Harry Jaffe reports, the Post deal “could cut into the core staff of writers who have made the Post what it is in the post-Watergate era.”

Names like Dan Balz (left), Tom Edsall, Jerry Knight, Crenshaw, Paul Blustein, Al Kamen, and even legend Tom Shales might end up leaving under the deal. For them it maximizes their cash and frees them up to pursue books, teaching, or–as many of the Post buy-outs seem to do–contract writing for the paper again.

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