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In just more evidence that the turmoil in U.S. newsrooms is far from over, Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli wrote in an email today that the newspaper would offer voluntary buyouts to newsroom employees. He wrote:

Today, we are announcing that we will offer a voluntary buyout to some Newsroom employees. Our objective is a limited staff reduction that won’t affect the quality, ambition or authority of our journalism. We believe this is possible, given the changes in how we work and the great successes we have had building our digital readership lately.

To preserve that momentum, we do not intend to offer this program to every department or individual in the Newsroom. The reality is that we’re able to absorb staffing changes better in some areas than in others. In those departments where we do offer the buyout, there will be caps on the number of people who can participate, in order to moderate the impact and preserve our competitiveness in core coverage areas. In addition, we may turn down some volunteers if we feel their departure would impair our journalism. That said, it is important that we achieve real savings.

According to Patrick Pexton, the Post’s ombudsman, the buyouts could reach 48 employees, or roughly eight percent of the 600 newsroom workers. The buyouts would be limited to employees of the following sections, he tweeted: Metro/local, photo, sports, business and Style editors and reporters. The national politics section, as well as national security, foreign news, investigative news, sports and style columnists, weekend, Sunday Outlook, graphics, Capital Business, op-ed and editorial would be spared from any buyouts.

The Post has been consistently losing money, and its parent company hasn’t been faring too well recently either.