• by Erik Sass , March 23, 2007

The hits just keep on coming. The Boston Globe is offering 24 more newsroom staffers buyouts, it announced on Wednesday, including two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists--Eileen McNamara and Stephen Kurkjian--who have already accepted.

The buyout is the latest in a series of big cutbacks at the newspaper, undertaken at the behest of corporate owner the New York Times Company. It comes close on the heels of an announcement that the company's ad revenues dropped 6% in February, compared to the same month last year.

Kurkjian was an investigative reporter who helped expose the sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic church's Boston diocese. McNamara was a popular columnist. The buyouts are part of a larger push to eliminate about 125 positions at the Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, also owned by the New York Times Co.

Although the cuts had already been publicized, the announcement was timed to follow the company's announcement of weak February ad revenues on Tuesday. The company's flagship paper, The New York Times saw revenue slip 7.5% in February, driven by weakness in technology products, studio entertainment, banking and national automotive categories. Revenue at the troubled New England group, including The Boston Globe, dipped 4%.

The smaller percentage loss at the New England group, compared to the rest of the company, is unusual--but may simply reflect cumulative losses at the New England group over the last several years.