According to its Twitter feed, the Hartford Courant Guild says Alden Global Capital has already moved to offer buyouts at Tribune newspapers in an effort to trim the workforce and cut costs.
The Laurel has been unable to independently confirm this reporting, but here’s what we do know based on local knowledge and facts on the ground.
If buyouts are offered at the Hartford Courant, the most likely targets and the most likely candidates to accept such an offer would necessarily include the longest serving, most knowledgeable, and most valuable members of the news staff. Only a handful of reporters who were working at the paper at the height of its power and influence, in the 1980s and 1990s, still remain on staff. If this group; which numbers perhaps a dozen or so, were to take buyout offers, much of the talent that built the modern Courant brand and reputation in the community will have left the building.
This does not mean all would be lost, but it would certainly require reconstruction.
