More buyouts offered at Advance newspaper in Alabama

The word spread via Twitter, email and chat but Media of Birmingham tracked down the details: All employees at the Birmingham News in Alabama were offered buyouts today. It is the third round of buyouts at the newspaper still seeking a replacement for its retiring publisher.


Several foks have said that  full-time employees were offered two weeks of pay for every year of service, while part-time employees would receive one week of pay for every year of service. Both are capped at 6 months.

And while we're talking about a Newhouse - Advance operation in Alabama .... I missed the Dec. 2  Twitter announcement but Media of Birmingham did not. The editor of al.com, the Advance site for the Alabama news organizations, ended his 10-year stint with the company. Ken Booth is off seeking new ventures, directions, .... though a Tweet today indicates the web is still a big focus.

"Some familiar old concerns of SEO, site updates and user feedback plus new concerns of fulfillment, e-commerce and inventory. I love it."

Media of Birmingham has a few details on Booth's plans.

Close by, a new vice president of advertising for the Mobile Press-Register was named. Vicki Barrett  also oversee advertising for the Mississippi Press in Pascagoula. VBarrett had the same post at Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss.

From a story once posted on al.com:

"Vicki is a consummate sales executive with tremendous energy, as well as a natural-born leader," said Press-Register Publisher Ricky Mathews, formerly publisher at the Sun Herald. "She will be an asset to the Press-Register as we strengthen our newspaper and our multimedia capabilities."

 ".... She was an instrumental part of helping our newspaper recover from Hurricane Katrina. Her approaches will help us serve our advertisers with innovative products and services like never before. This has never been more important than in these tough economic times."

 She replaced  former advertising director Larry Wooley, who retired.

Still looking for updates on buyouts and closings at other Advance organizations. Feel free to send me a link or an email. We're just about done with another round of checkups for my daughter, who hopefully will get from Detroit to Knoxville sometime today. But that's another post - need some sleep first.