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Today the New York Times Company proudly announced a "targeted staff reduction" plan, in which 190 employees from the Times and the Boston Globe will be relieved of their cost-inducing positions. To our knowledge, this pink-slipping parade will have minimal impact on the papers' newsrooms, but we're more fascinated by the memo sent to shaking employees. Per usual, the email is sent from the "Arthur & Janet" account, which seems so genial — like they're inviting you over for pie or something, except that you're getting fired.

After the jump, the message of "cloudy economic outlook" in its entirety.

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Subject: Memo from Arthur & Janet
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 11:00:10 -0400

Today we are announcing targeted staff reductions. Earlier this year, we began rigorously evaluating our operations to determine how we could further streamline them to improve efficiency and lower costs. At both The Times newspaper and the New England Media Group, many departments have identified cost savings and generally supported efforts to improve our bottom line. All of these efforts have included cross-functional groups of employees who are dedicated full-time to examining different functional processes.

Given the current challenges in the advertising at the Times and the Globe and the cloudy economic outlook for the remainder of the year, we believed it was prudent to accelerate these ongoing cost control efforts. Therefore, we plan a strategic staff reduction program that will include approximately 190 employees at The New York Times and the New England Media Group. We are working through the bargaining issues with our unions - primarily the guilds in New York and Boston - and the affected employees will be offered severance packages. The Company expects to complete the staff reduction program by the end of August.

Staff reductions will be carefully managed so that they do not adversely affect the quality of our journalism, the smooth functioning of our daily operations or our ability to achieve our long-term strategic goals. We will continue to evaluate our processes to make sure that we are operating as efficiently as possible.

While conditions in the media marketplace remain difficult, we have been through similar challenges in the past. Throughout our 154-year history, we have experienced peaks and troughs but we have always found a way to prosper. We have continued confidence in our shared vision, intellect and values, and we know that we will weather this challenge as well.


- Arthur and Janet