Washington Post announces another buyout program targeting veteran staffers, other departments
Advertisement
The Washington Post announced Monday it was implementing another buyout program, this time targeting veteran staffers and other department employees.
'Today, we are announcing that The Washington Post is offering a Voluntary Separation Program (VSP) to news employees with 10 or more years' service at The Post, as well as to all members of the video department and to all members of the copy desk and sports copy desk,' Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray wrote in a staff memo obtained by Fox News Digital.
The memo stated the move was part of The Washington Post's 'ongoing newsroom transformation efforts aimed at reshaping and modernizing the newsroom for the current environment.'
'Like the rest of our industry, we are adapting to changing habits and new technologies that are transforming news experiences. Even as we have begun creating new departments and welcoming new colleagues, to reach new audiences we must increase our staffing flexibility and expand in areas such as audience data and social video,' Murray continued.
Advertisement
Murray told staff the buyout program would conclude by the end of July.
'With the VSP, we will no doubt see valued colleagues and friends decide to leave The Post,' Murray wrote.
3 Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray wrote in a staff memo that the company has implemented another buyout program known as the 'Voluntary Separation Program (VSP) to news employees with 10 or more years' service.'
Christopher Sadowski
'But as stewards of this great institution, we all must remain relentlessly focused on bringing engaging and relevant journalism to growing numbers of readers in the formats and ways they want it in 2025. That is an urgent and important task for us given the pace of technological change, the industry's evolving landscape and the ever-present need to produce and promote strong, rigorous and independent journalism.'
Advertisement
According to a VSP document viewed by Fox News Digital, nine months of base pay would be given to staffers employed for 10-15 years, 12 months of base pay for 15-20-year veterans, 15 months of base pay for 20-25-year veterans and 18 months for anyone who has worked at the Post for more than 25 years.
All of them would also receive 12 months of pay credit in their Separate Retirement Account (SRA).
3 The memo, obtained by Fox News Digital, also reveals that those included in the VSP are the video department, copy desk, and sports copy desk personnel.
The Washington Post via Getty Images
One Washington Post staffer told Fox News Digital that the new buyout program is 'less discerning' than previous rounds of buyouts because of how widespread it is, adding that copy editors are 'always targets' and that they're 'always underperticipated.'
Advertisement
'Less important who stays or goes. Just want to get the numbers down,' the staffer said.
A spokesperson for The Washington Post told Fox News Digital, 'The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are. This voluntary program is part of our ongoing efforts aimed at reshaping how we deliver world-class news experiences and expand our reach to serve all Americans.'
3 Murray said the buyout program will end by July.
via REUTERS
The 'Democracy Dies in Darkness' paper was hit with layoffs earlier this year and previously implemented buyouts in 2023.
The Post was reportedly expected to lose a whopping $77 million in 2024.
There has been an exodus of talent from the Post in recent months, including several resignations following moves made by the paper's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, who halted the Post's endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris just days before the presidential election and his initiative announced earlier this year, ordering columns regularly defending 'personal liberties and free markets' and banning viewpoints that oppose them.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
How Trump special envoy's move to bring Tate brothers to US caught president unaware
WASHINGTON — White House special envoy Ric Grenell caught President Trump off-guard when he advocated for the notorious Tate brothers to travel to Florida while awaiting trial in Romania earlier this year, leaving administration insiders frustrated and questioning Grenell's motives. In mid-February, Grenell, 58, approached Romanian Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference and convinced him to release accused sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate into US custody as they await trial on charges including rape and human trafficking in eastern Europe — without notifying anyone else in the administration, according to multiple sources and Hurezeanu's own admission. 'We learned about the Tate brothers after the fact,' a high-ranking White House source told The Post last week. Advertisement Grenell's actions — both in the matter of the Tates and in other delicate situations — exemplify the problems raised by special envoys, who play roles similar to ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state but often do so without the obligation to obey a formal chain of command and while carrying added responsibility as the president's personal representative. 'This was yet another example of Grenell going outside the chain of command to pursue his own goals, rather than the president's,' a source close the the White House familiar with discussions told The Post. 3 President Trump (right) walks with special envoy and interim Kennedy Center executive director Ric Grenell March 17. AP Advertisement On Feb. 27, 11 days after the Munich conference wrapped, the Tates, who were born in the US, touched down in Fort Lauderdale on a private jet. The same day, Trump hosted British Prime Minister Kier Starmer and was asked whether the president's administration had 'pressured' Romania to hand over the accused sexual predators. 'I don't know. You're saying he's on a plane right now?' a visibly confused Trump asked. 'I just know nothing about it. We'll check it out, we'll let you know.' Shortly after, when Starmer spoke about the brothers facing investigation in the United Kingdom, the president said to him, perplexed: 'You're aware? You're aware of this? I didn't know anything about it.' Risky game Advertisement While much of the media scorned Trump's comments, White House officials confirmed the president's surprise and bewilderment — and rounded on Grenell for putting the commander in chief in a tight spot. 'President Trump is on recording saying he know nothing about the Tate brothers' flight to Florida, so why did Ric Grenell even raise the issue with a Romanian official?' a source close the the White House familiar with discussions told The Post. 3 Andrew Tate, left, and his brother Tristan outside a Romanian police station May 21. AP The Tates' release caused bipartisan blowback — with big GOP names like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) as well as conservative media personalities Ben Shapiro and Megyn Kelly speaking out against the White House. Advertisement It also sparked a congressional inquiry by House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who penned a letter asking the State Department to what extent the US government was involved in Romanian officials' decision to release the brothers. Almost immediately after the letter — which cc'd Grenell — was sent to the State Department, the envoy called to 'berate' a Raskin staffer, saying 'you're going to ruin my reputation,' according to a person familiar with the conversation. The interaction was first reported in early April by NOTUS. 'The State Department has failed to answer the Committee's questions and address our concerns,' the person said. 'All we have received was a short, non-substantive response from the State Department more than a month after the letter was sent.' While the blowback over the release has died down, the question that has puzzled Grenell's critics remains: Why risk the administration's credibility on Andrew and Tristan Tate? Grenell, a former ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence, has been open about his support for the Tate brothers, whose followers among the far-right include longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone and Paul Ingrassia, the newly appointed head of the Office of Special Counsel. Andrew Tate has similarly expressed support for Grenell, tweeting the day before his release from Romania that the envoy is helping Trump 'sav(e) America along with the entire western world by extension.' Grenell also has extensive experience in eastern and southeastern Europe, dating back to at least his role facilitating peace talks between Serbia and Kosovo during Trump's first term. 'Was this motivated by a personal, political or business interest, or is he just a Tate Brothers fanboy?' asked a former friend of Grenell's. 'Either is a massive red flag.' Advertisement In a comment to the Financial Times in February, Grenell acknowledged his support for the Tates, 'as evident by my publicly available tweets' But he has since scrubbed all posts about the brothers, including a retweet of Stone crediting Grenell for 'securing the release of the Tates.' However, a Grenell associate says he kept up ties with the Tates even after their return, sitting ringside when the brothers made an appearance at the UFC 313 card in Las Vegas on March 8. 'Not Ric's job to make sure State knows' Since the Tate fiasco, Grenell has continued to ruffle feathers in his various roles, sounding a rare discordant note in an administration whose key players seem to be mainly on the same page. Advertisement 'It's like Festivus inside the White House, and the airing of the grievances is heavy on Grenell,' said one source close to President Trump, referencing an episode of the classic sitcom 'Seinfeld.' Last month, Grenell — in an apparent attempt to apply lessons from the Tate incident — briefly mentioned to Trump that he had reached a deal with Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro to return an American detainee, but left key White House and State Department officials without any clue of his foreign dealings, according to senior administration officials. 'State Department was intentionally left in the dark, as was Rubio,' confirmed Tactic Global lobbyist Caroline Wren, who told The Post she helps Grenell with his public relations and worked on the Venezuela initiative with him. 'It's not Ric's job to make sure State knows.' Advertisement 3 Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro speaks to Iranian officials in Caracas last month. via REUTERS Wren did not elaborate on why the department was left out of the loop, but Grenell had asked Maduro to free Air Force veteran Joe St. Clair as a sign that the dictator was willing to work with the Trump administration, multiple sources say. In return, Grenell suggested to Maduro that Trump would extend Chevron's license to import Venezuelan oil — but that was news to the administration, which has consistently supported the president's desire to expire the license May 27, according to senior officials. Some far-right influencers — such as firebrand Laura Loomer and many of Grenell's closest associates, including Wren — say the license should be extended to block China from cornering the Venezuelan oil market. Advertisement When The Post contacted Grenell May 15 to ask whether he was holding discussions with Caracas about extending the Chevron license, Grenell directed another lobbyist — former Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) — to contact The Post to push the China angle. Schock, who according to Wren also helps Grenell with PR, also consults for South Florida oil magnate Harry Sargeant, whose license to operate his oil-trading company in Venezuela was canceled by Trump's anti-Maduro policy, a former friend of Sargeant's told The Post. Schock did not reply to a request for comment on his association with Sargeant, whom Wren called a 'good friend' she 'talks to all the time.' Sargeant, however, denied that Schock or Grenell were advocating on his behalf. On a more ominous note, law enforcement sources say Grenell's deal with Maduro to return a single detainee could encourage Caracas officials to direct the Tren de Aragua cartel to kidnap more Americans for use as bargaining chips to reduce US sanctions. The FBI has said that the Venezuelan dictator controls the brutal cartel recently listed as a foreign terrorist organization. The same day the Chevron oil license expired, the State Department issued a stark travel warning to Americans, urging them not to visit Venezuela due to risk of wrongful detention, torture, kidnapping and crime. Closer to home, Grenell — who is also president and interim executive director of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — caused another firestorm when he dismissed center vice president Floyd Brown May 28 after Brown refused to disown comments promoting 'traditional marriage' and criticizing the influence of gay staffers in the Republican party. 'The only explanation is the one given to me at the time of my firing: 'Floyd, you must recant your belief in traditional marriage and your past statements on the topic, or you will be fired,'' Brown posted to X May 29. 'Needless to say, I refused to recant and was shown the door. My beliefs are much more common to Biblical Christianity.' As multiple sources pointed out, the firing appeared to run counter to Trump's main reason for appointing Grenell, who is openly gay, in the first place: To rid the DC venue of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies. 'From being rebuked on the Chevron license, to his connection to the Tate Brothers, to allegations of firing a Kennedy staffer over Christian beliefs, Ric Grenell keeps finding new and creative ways to embarrass himself and those around him,' a source close the the White House familiar with the situation said. The State Department, Romanian Foreign Ministry, Schock, Grenell and an attorney for the Tates did not respond to requests for comment.
Engadget
an hour ago
- Engadget
It turns out you can train AI models without copyrighted material
AI companies claim their tools couldn't exist without training on copyrighted material. It turns out, they could — it's just really hard. To prove it, AI researchers trained a new model that's less powerful but much more ethical. That's because the LLM's dataset uses only public domain and openly licensed material. The paper (via The Washington Post ) was a collaboration between 14 different institutions. The authors represent universities like MIT, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Toronto. Nonprofits like Vector Institute and the Allen Institute for AI also contributed. The group built an 8 TB ethically-sourced dataset. Among the data was a set of 130,000 books in the Library of Congress. After inputting the material, they trained a seven-billion-parameter large language model (LLM) on that data. The result? It performed about as well as Meta's similarly sized Llama 2-7B from 2023. The team didn't publish benchmarks comparing its results to today's top models. Performance comparable to a two-year-old model wasn't the only downside. The process of putting it all together was also a grind. Much of the data couldn't be read by machines, so humans had to sift through it. "We use automated tools, but all of our stuff was manually annotated at the end of the day and checked by people," co-author Stella Biderman told WaPo . "And that's just really hard." Figuring out the legal details also made the process hard. The team had to determine which license applied to each website they scanned. So, what do you do with a less powerful LLM that's much harder to train? If nothing else, it can serve as a counterpoint. In 2024, OpenAI told a British parliamentary committee that such a model essentially couldn't exist. The company claimed it would be "impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials." Last year, an Anthropic expert witness added, "LLMs would likely not exist if AI firms were required to license the works in their training datasets." Of course, this study won't change the trajectory of AI companies. After all, more work to create less powerful tools doesn't jive with their interests. But at least it punctures one of the industry's common arguments. Don't be surprised if you hear about this study again in legal cases and regulation arguments.
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
I'm a superyacht nanny — I get paid to travel the world in luxury while watching rich people's kids
BB Smalls wasn't looking for a free ride when she signed on as a nanny to Hollywood honchos, globally-renowned rock stars and bigwig billionaires. But free first-class flights to Bora Bora, $100,000 rooms at the St. Regis Resort and bougie boating excursions along the Amalfi Coast are exactly what she got — not to mention routine shopping sprees at Gucci, Chanel and Louis Vuitton — while on the job. 'I've been everywhere: Maui, Tahiti, London, Italy, Scotland, you name it,' Smalls, 44, from Los Angeles, tells The Post. Advertisement Nondisclosure agreements bar her from spilling the secrets and specifics of her eccentric ex-bosses. But Smalls, now a married stay-at-home mom living in Texas, says, 'Nannying for the right people means getting paid to travel.' She's in the 40% of childcare providers who are 'superyacht nannies,' and regularly globetrot, by sky, land or sea, to luxe locations with their employers, per data via the International Nanny Association. 9 BB Smalls has been living a grand life as a superyacht nanny to the rich and famous. Courtesy BB Smalls Advertisement It's a post that grants kiddo pros the opportunity to see the sights, as well as how the top 1% travels, for free. The super lucky even get to nanny on superyachts, vacation vessels spanning over 80 feet in length, which are roughly twice the length of an average yacht. The behemoths come fully staffed with a captain and crew. Chartering the megacruisers can cost between $100,000 and more than $1 million per week, depending on size, time of year and onboard amenities, such as helipads, movie theatres, Jacuzzis and gyms. But most A-list showboats like Mark Zuckerberg, who paid a reported $300 million for his 387-foot superyacht, and Jeff Bezos, with his 417-foot, $500 million ship, rarely sweat over dollars and cents. Advertisement 9 Ella Peters has been a superyacht nanny for a decade. Ella Peters/ Ella Peters, a superyacht nanny of nearly 10 years, said that during peak yachting season, June through August, she's often booked for back-to-back trips with a revolving door of well-to-do employers from NYC, Europe and the Middle East. 'I do love the job,' the 28-year-old owner of UK's tells The Post. 'But it is exhausting.' She charges around $500 per day for her on-ship sitter services. However, her fees, not including the standard 'four-figure tip' she typically receives, can increase according to the number of children aboard and their ages. Advertisement 9 Peters' job has taken her all over the world. Ella Peters/ Like Smalls, Peters works for internationally known hotshots whose names must remain hush-hush due to NDAs. Her upper-crust clients routinely rent nearly 300-foot-long tubs, costing over $1 million per week, for family cruises through the Mediterranean. The preferred path they sail is famously known as 'The Milk Run.' On it, tycoons tour the south of France, Corsica and Sardinia, Italy — home to Costa Smeralda, nicknamed 'billionaires' playground,' owing to its turquoise waters, fine-sand shores and chichi beach clubs. 'It has everything my ultrahigh net worth families want,' said Peters. 'My favorite 'pinch me' moment was driving myself and my 11-year-old charge on a jet ski through the famous Faraglioni rocks in Capri, Italy,' the Londoner said. 9 Peters said her clients are 'ultrahigh net worth families,' but NDAs forbid her from disclosing whom she's worked for. Ella Peters/ Still, Smalls, who recently left VIP nannying for content creation, says working for the uberwealthy wasn't always smooth sailing. 'One Bel Air family wanted me to nanny for them on a yacht for an entire month, but I wasn't allowed to be seen,' she recalled of the odd demand. 'If either parent walked into a room that I was in, I'd have to hide and hold in place until they left the room.' Advertisement 'During my downtime on the yacht, I'd have to stay out of sight and be banished to my room.' But Peters has only had stellar experiences — and very little downtime — while minding mini moguls on the waves. 'I get up before the children and try to drink some coffee in peace,' Peters says. 'When you're onboard, you have to put in effort to get a few moments to yourself. After that, everything is go, go, go.' But her skills are worth every penny. Advertisement 9 Peters does everything from feeding the kids breakfasts aboard the ship to accompanying them on jet ski rides. Ella Peters/ Peters comes fully equipped with pediatric first-aid training, police background clearance, nanny insurance, water safety training and a personal watercraft license — documents that permit her to operate jet skis and paddle boats. And while their moneyed mommies and daddies play, she entertains the tots all day. 'After my coffee, I greet the kids in the morning as they wake up, then feed them a small breakfast before we do arts and crafts,' Peters began. Advertisement Depending on the size of the superyacht, she either gets her own room, bunks with the babies or shares living quarters with a crew member. 9 Peters said the best route to sail is famously known as 'The Milk Run,' which goes through the south of France, Corsica and Sardinia, Italy — home to Costa Smeralda, nicknamed 'billionaires' playground.' Ella Peters/ 'When the parents wake up, the kids have a proper family breakfast with them, then we do a few morning watersports before they do a family-style buffet lunch,' continued the millennial. 'In the afternoon, when the sun is really hot, we do more arts and crafts before doing more water activities or stopping off at a local village for ice cream and exploring.' 'At night, I feed the kids dinner while the parents prepare for their evening plans,' she said of the superpacked schedule. 'Then it's time for bed.' Advertisement 9 Peters said she is booked solid through yacht season to watch kiddos. Ella Peters/ Sarah Leonard, 25, a superyacht nanny from Maryland, however, tells The Post her days on the water are more like walks in the park. 'I spend about four hours a day working with the kids, the rest of the time I'm able to chill on the yacht or maybe explore,' said the Gen Z. She's spent the past two summers as a superyacht nanny for a South African influencer family with a bent towards boating around Turkey, Greece and Italy. 'I was working as a scuba diver in Puerto Rico back in 2023, and I saw a Facebook listing for a yacht nannying position and applied,' said Leonard, a certified rescue diver and CPR expert and former lifeguard. 9 Sarah Leonard, 25, has been a superyacht nanny for the past two summers. @sarahtravelingnanny/TikTok For her, the childcare gig was an unpaid position that came with the perks of enjoying an all-inclusive, saltwater excursion. And the family, comprising a mom, dad and two boys under age 8, treated Leonard like family, giving her a private bedroom and bathroom, including her in family meals and 'gifting' her with a special token of their appreciation at the end of the two-month journey. 9 Leonard wasn't paid for her gig, but got to join a family for two months on their yacht. @sarahtravelingnanny/TikTok But Leonard, who'll be touring Italy and France with new brood this summer, says traveling with little ones is the true gift that keeps on giving. 'I get to experience the world through the eyes of these little kids,' gushed the superyacht nanny. 'It's magical.'
