Joyce Wadler, the original bold-faced name columnist, has decided to take a buyout, a source tells us. The announcement was included in a longer email to Times staff, noting that Ms. Wadler would leave the Times to pursue her passion: humor writing.
With the January 24 deadline for voluntary buyouts fast approaching, more exit announcements in the coming days are to be expected. In December, executive editor Jill Abramson announced that she had to cut 30 positions. If not, layoffs.
“I hope the needed savings can be achieved through voluntary buyouts but if not, I will be forced to go to layoffs among the excluded staff,” Ms. Abramson wrote at the time. ” I expect that I will have to reduce the excluded staff by about 30 positions.”
As of last week, only assistant managing editor Jonathan Landman and reporter Jacques Steinberg had announced their departures. But as NY Mag‘s Daily Intelligencer blog reported last week, Ms. Abramson has been “begging and pleading” top editors.
“Since I last spoke to you about the buyouts, some of our colleagues have made decisions to ask for them. Others are still making up their minds and considering whether the package fits their career and life plans,” Ms. Abramson wrote in a memo obtained by NY Mag.
There is ongoing speculation about who else will leave. The clock is ticking– after all, January 24 is only 10 days away.
