[UPDATED] On Deadline Day, <em>Times</em> Employees Take Buyouts

Today is the deadline for newsroom buyouts at The New York Times. So far, two more have accepted the deal.

Update (1:37 p.m.): Assistant managing editor Jim Roberts announced via his Twitter feed that he is leaving the Times. We don’t know whether he has taken the buyout.

Original Post: Terry Schwadron, head of news operations, has decided to take the Times buyout, a source tells us. The announcement went out in an email to the newsroom this morning.

Mr. Schwadron, who came to The New York Times in 1998 from The Los Angeles Times, where he was deputy managing editor, served as the  editor for information and news technology at the Times for most of his time there. In that role, Mr. Schwadron advised and helped set the paper’s social media policy.

New York Times sports editor Joseph Sexton also announced that he has accepted the buyout. Mr. Sexton will go to non-profit investigative journalism organization ProPublica, as a senior editor. ProPublica’s editor in chief, Stephen Engelberg, announced the move in a post this morning.

Yesterday, classical music editor Jim Oestreich announced that he would accept the buyout.

Executive editor Jill Abramson sent a memo, obtained by Politico, on to staffers about the layoffs last night. According to the memo, it will take a few days to figure out if the buyout process has been successful. “We will know a day or two after that whether or not we will have to go to layoffs in order to reach the savings we need,” she wrote. So far, by our count, we are up to eight. According to Ms. Abramson’s December announcement, the magic number is 30.

Meanwhile, the slow process has been a stressful one for the Times newsroom.

“Living with the uncertainty that this kind of process inevitably creates has been painful for us all,” Ms. Abramson wrote. “And at the same time we are grappling with the sadness at the departure of friends, of wise and trusted colleagues and great journalists.”