THERE’S a stampede emerging at The Star-Ledger.
Donald Newhouse, president of Advance Publications, avoided disaster this week by obtaining enough concessions to save the Newark paper and keep it as a viable concern inside the billionaire family’s media empire.
But now the company has an entirely new problem on its hands. There are too many people looking to get out, and nearly half of them are going to be told, that hell no, they can’t go.
There were eventually 409 volunteers for a buyout that included a year’s pay. That is more than 50 percent of the non-union work force of 756. The company said it needed 200, and would accept up to 230.
With so many people trying to quit with a package it is going to be a big headache for Publisher George Arwady and Editor-in-Chief Jim Willse to put out the paper.
Before all the buyouts began there were about 1,300 people on board, and the buyouts were expected to chop about 300 from the headcount.
The non-unionized newsroom includes about 335 people reporting to Willse who were part of the non-unionized work force of 756. It is not clear how many will be exiting the newsroom as a result.
Willse declined to comment. Most of the reporters have been operating without wage increases for the past three years.
In the last Audit Bureau, The Star-Ledger’s daily circulation was 346,000, but sources fear it could be below 300,000 when the next round of audit reports arrive in the next few weeks. The Sunday circulation is around 520,000 and is also expected to take a hit.
Arwady, in his memo announcing that The Star-Ledger was saved, also broke the news that he never wanted to have more than 230 volunteers.
“Now we must undertake the difficult task of deciding which applications will be accepted or rejected, and which remaining employees might be transferred to new jobs,” he said. “This will not be a quick process, because we find ourselves with far more applicants than the 230 we would accept without rejecting any applications.”
The final decision is expected by the end of the month.
“There’s going to be a lot of unhappy people around here,” said one insider.
The Newhouse family in late July said it would sell or fold the paper if it did not get the concessions it wanted. Said one source involved in the negotiations, “They did a great job of scaring the bejesus out of everyone.”
First out
The late Hollywood legend Paul Newman, who last week made the covers of Entertainment Weekly and People, now is going to be the subject of a new biography for the Harmony imprint of Crown, a unit of Random House.
Shawn Levy, a film critic for the Portland Oregonian, actually inked the deal in 2006, but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere – until the actor’s death last week after a long bout with cancer. Now the book is slated to appear in the fall of 2009.
Levy wrote “Rat Pack Confidential” and “King of Comedy, the Life and Art of Jerry Lewis.”
Fair play
“Blackhawk Down” author Mark Bowden is loosening his ties to The Atlantic in order to write two big pieces a year for Vanity Fair. Atlantic Editor-in-Chief James Bennet said Bowden hasn’t severed all ties to the magazine where he has worked for the past six years.
“He’s still going to be a national correspondent for us,” said Bennet. He acknowledged that with the Vanity Fair deal, Bowden will be contributing less often but will still be doing at least “one big piece and a couple of short pieces for us.”
The news comes as Bennet gets ready to unleash a major redesign of the Atlantic next week, including a new, larger logo on the cover and a complete makeover of everything from the typeface to the features.
The work is the product of designer Mike Bierut of Pentagram, who started work on the overhaul in the spring.
It is the eighth major makeover in the 151-year history of the magazine, according to Bennet. The Atlantic moved to 10 issues a year several years ago.
Bennet said he wants to make the front section of the magazine, which will now be called Dispatches, less political and policy- centric. As a result, Michael Hirschorn‘s media column moves to the front as does a new column by James Parker on popular culture.
The front cover of the first issue is an assemblage, but in the future it will have a single image tied to the main feature story, and a black band down the left hand side to showcase other stories.
The redesign hits newsstands next week.