Four veteran staff members of the already significantly downsized Capital Times staff are leaving the paper, according to an email to staff sent Monday by Editor Paul Fanlund.
The note said that opinion editor Judie Kleinmaier, photographer Mike DeVries, online editor PJ Slinger and print coordinator Gary Neuenschwander had all agreed to “voluntary departures” from the newspaper’s staff. In addition, photographer Michelle Stocker has agreed to reduce her hours to just three days a week.
“The good news is that … enough people voluntarily stepped forward, so we will have no involuntary actions,” Fanlund wrote in the email. He said the paper plans an event to honor those departing on Friday, Aug. 14, “with details to follow.”
These cuts come on the heels of high-profile involuntary layoffs at the jointly owned Wisconsin State Journal, including columnist Doug Moe and sports writers Andy Baggot and Dennis Semrau. At the time, in June, sources said the Capital Times was offering buyouts to employees age 40 and older who have been at the paper at least 10 years. They were promised one week of severance pay for every year of service, up to 26 weeks.
In the case of the State Journal, there was no farewell event, and the laid-off writers were not allowed to write farewell columns for the paper. But Moe did write a send-off column in Madison Magazine, where he once served as editor. He noted in that piece that he was “not sure why” he wasn’t allowed a farewell piece, after 18 years of writing for both papers, “except that it’s probably related to lawyers.”
With the departures, the Cap Times will have fewer than two dozen staff members, according to the paper’s staff directory. Rather than two full-time photographers, it will be left with just one part-time photographer.
In 2008, just before the paper ceased daily publication and went to a digital product with a weekly insert in the State Journal, it had 65 people on staff.
Fanlund did not promptly respond to an emailed request for comment on the impact of these staff changes. He wrote in his note:
“We will greatly miss the outstanding contributions that all of [these employees] made over many years, and obviously, their departures will affect our operations. We do not yet have all the answers about which roles will change or to what degree as a result, but figuring that out quickly is a top priority.”
Fanlund added that the company’s ownership “is as committed as ever to keeping the Cap Times vibrant far into the future and to pursuing the digital-first course that we have been charting.”
Attempts to reach departing staff were not immediately successful.
