Boston.com, The free website owned by The Boston Globe, announced on Wednesday it’s offering buyouts to its staff as its parent company undergoes an overhaul of its digital operations.
Citing a desire for “fewer redundancies, increased collaboration, greater efficiency and cost savings,” Boston.com General Manager Eleanor Cleverly and Executive Director of Engineering Anthony Bonfiglio announced the buyout program in a memo to staffers. It did not specify how many employees Boston.com was aiming to cut.
Boston.com is now more than twenty years old; and this year, Globe.com celebrates its fifth anniversary. These sites are the two most popular digital news and information destinations in New England. As the digital landscape continues to change, we too must change and evolve.
Elsewhere in the memo, which is reproduced in its entirety below, Cleverly describes a desire to better differentiate the two general-interest news websites maintained by The Boston Globe: Boston.com, the Globe’s free website, and Globe.com, its paywalled offering. The mission of the sites will continue to diverge, with Boston.com earmarked for “community-centered resources” while Globe.com will remain the “foremost site for news, information, and journalism from our region.”
News of the buyout was reported first by Politico, which adds that employees will receive “one week of pay for every six months with the company.”
The remaking of Boston.com is part of a broader transformation underway at Boston Globe Media, the parent company of The Globe owned by billionaire John Henry. In April, Globe editor Brian McGrory announced that the newspaper would re-examine its strategy and coverage priorities in order to keep pace with the unceasing digital disruption affecting the news business.
Here’s the memo:
Hello all,
Boston.com is now more than twenty years old; and this year, Globe.com celebrates its fifth anniversary. These sites are the two most popular digital news and information destinations in New England. As the digital landscape continues to change, we too must change and evolve.
The number one, long-term priority of our organization is to significantly grow our digital subscriber base at Globe.com. In order to do so, we need for our two sites to become more complementary in their day-to-day content and businesses.
Boston.com will continue to be the region’s best free go-to site for things to do, where to live, what to drive, where to work, destinations for travel and so much more, while also evolving to more closely focus on the needs of our audiences in key demographic segments and advertisers who are trying to connect with our audiences. It will be the indispensable guide, resource, and forum for the region. Boston.com will also be a portal to news from The Boston Globe for millions of visitors every month.
The Boston Globe will continue to build on its remarkable Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism and its position as a leader in paid digital subscribers among metro dailies in the country. Globe.com will remain the foremost site for news, information, and journalism from our region. The recent launch of our in-depth, graphically enhanced sports site is just the beginning of what is in store for Globe.com.
There will be a clearer differentiation between the in-depth journalism of Globe.com and the community-centered resources of Boston.com. With resulting efficiencies anticipated, we are offering a voluntary buyout program for those who work in dedicated digital roles across Boston Globe Media Partners. A reorganization of the digital operation is under way. This will create fewer redundancies, increased collaboration, greater efficiency and cost savings across the company.
You will undoubtedly have questions about these changes, particularly how they will personally and professionally impact you. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will host Q&A sessions for departments across Boston Globe Media Partners, beginning this afternoon. We will also address, with more specificity, how this new vision will be reflected in our core digital products.
For those of you who are staying as we move ahead, know that you will be part of a team of smart, collaborative, digital-first thinkers who will generate stories of great relevance and innovative products we can all be proud of. For those who choose to take this buyout, thank you for making our digital experience such an important part of our future.
Eleanor and Anthony
