Nine staff take Waterloo Region Record buyouts
Nine people have taken buyouts at the Waterloo Region Record, according to a memo obtained by J-Source, including city editor Harvey Taylor and assistant news editor Bill Bean.
By Tamara Baluja
Nine people have taken buyouts at the Waterloo Region Record, including city editor Harvey Taylor and assistant news editor Bill Bean.
According to a memo obtained by J-Source, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Lynn Haddrall, said the departures will be staggered over the coming weeks, and the newsroom will undergo a restructuring.
“I would like to thank all our departing staff for their service to the Record and the community,” Haddrall wrote in the memo. “We wish them well as they retire or pursue other interests.”
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Reporters Frances Barrick and Dianne Wood, copy editors Ryan Chen-Wing and Leanne Moses, photo and graphics technician Arnie Dyck, business reporter Chuck Howitt and senior photographer Robert Wilson also took the buyout.
“The Voluntary Departure Program was part of a departmental restructuring and cost cutting plan,” said the Record’s publisher Paul McCuaig in an email to J-Source. “For privacy and operational reasons we don't share salary or savings information.”
The Waterloo Region Record is a daily newspaper covering the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. The newspaper is published by Metroland Media Group, a subsidiary of Torstar, which reported a 44 per cent drop in profits in its last quarter.
Tamara Baluja is an award-winning journalist with CBC Vancouver and the 2018 Michener-Deacon fellow for journalism education. She was the associate editor for J-Source from 2013-2014.