The downsizing continues...

Monday at 5 p.m. was the deadline for those of us at The Oregonian to accept a buyout offer designed to shrink the company payroll and slash expenditures so they are in line with the sharply reduced revenues we've experienced in the past couple years. Advertising and circulation losses, competition from online news and the recession itself -- all have taken a toll.

This latest buyout offer, Round Three in the past 12 months, was supposed to result in the loss of about 50 full-time and part-time newsroom positions. But as the revenue situation worsened over the summer, Editor Sandy Rowe announced last week that we'd actually need to shed 70 jobs. Last I heard late Monday afternoon, roughly 40 people had stepped up to take the buyout...which means as many as 30 more people will be tapped for layoffs as early as February, when our previously rescinded Job Guarantee Pledge takes effect.

We've seen so many talented collagues, young and old, newcomers and native Oregonians alike, leave for other opportunities, ranging from retirement to new jobs, both in and out of journalism and communications, that it's also become numbing. I feel good for those who are landing on their feet and sad for all of us that we've had to deal with this situation.

I'm among those who elected to stay, partly out of loyalty, partly out of the new and continuing challenges we face in doing a sharp turn toward community journalism, online news and increased zoning of local stories -- a strategy that the new publisher, Chris Anderson, thinks is key to our survival. (You can read more about Anderson in a piece that appeared in Willamette Week on Nov. 4. Typical of the alt-weekly's reporting standards, the piece was heavy on unnamed sources, especially those critical of Anderson, who previously was honored as Editor of the Year and Publisher of the Year by his industry colleagues. You'd think he's doing something right...)

I've met twice with Sandy in recent days to discuss what comes next. One option is to stay where I am, editing Sunday Opinion. The other is to become part of The O's new team of editors charged with setting up and maintaining hyperlocal news web sites. I'll keep my preferences to myself for now and see how things play out while I keep an open mind. No decisions will be made until the dust settles -- namely, taking stock of who's left after buyouts are taken into account. Sandy and other top editors at The O will need to figure out how to redeploy the staff, considering people's skill sets and the work that needs to be done in print and online.

The list of colleagues who are leaving includes veterans I've worked with for a decade or two and relative newbies -- many of them people I recruited to the paper as college interns or entry-level hires. It's been pretty sobering to see them become young husbands and wives, and now parents, and see them leave a profession they love.

Illustration: Jonathan Hill/Willamette Week