A list of 74 AJC employees who accepted the paper’s buyout offer was published this morning.

Not being an insider of any kind, many of these names are unfamiliar to me.  Luckily, Creative Loafing’s Scott Henry went through the list and gave us a rundown of what’s being lost.  In addition to nearly all the arts critics, DeKalb bureau chief Larry Conley and DeKalb reporter David Simpson are among those who accepted the buyout.

Henry also reports in his post of layoffs last week that have upset remaining staffers.

And in other “News About the News” news, the paper is moving Cynthia Tucker to D.C. to cover national politics.  Which makes me wonder, what happened to the focus on local?

This morning, the AJC announced plans to downsize from 323 full-time employees to 230.  That’s a 28.79% reduction in staff…which they round up to 30%.  The paper also announced another reduction in distribution area, eliminating service in Barrow, Bibb, Clarke, Houston, Monroe, Oconee and Putnam Counties.

As the article points out, the AJC had around 500 staffers in 2006.  By May, they’ll have only 230.  That’s a 54% decline in three years.

So how does the AJC plan to survive?  This paragraph from a letter sent to staff by AJC editor Julia Wallace sums it up…

Our mission and goals remain the same. We need to continue to grow digital. We need to produce a very high-quality Sunday newspaper, filled with unique local content. And we must produce a daily newspaper that quickly and efficiently tells our readers the news of the day of and the news coming up.

The focus on local is reassuring.  The lack of ad dollars online is not.

Will the AJC be able to right the ship?  And how many people will be left if/when it does?  Its become a gripping news story in itself.

h/t:  Fresh Loaf

Creative Loafing reports a substantial blood-letting at the AJC may be imminent.

When and how does this ever stop?

Does an online news”paper” model require such a reduction in staff?  With these layoffs, will we finally have a sustainable business model?  Right now local news is written like its a recap for the rest of the metro area and not to keep potential affected citizens informed (see: Hey Atlanta, Decatur’s reconfiguring its school system and parents are concerned!“)  At what point does the news get so watered down that people just stop reading?

Why not take a gamble and just make it a pay site?  Or at least make local news pay-only.  Keep all that AP, NY Times and WaPo stuff free.  Lord knows “The Buzz” is a right and not a privilege. Who else out there can report local news on the same scale?  In a choice between pay or nothing, which would you choose?

And what’s the worst that happens?  More layoffs?

Nothing like a post full of questions to solve the world’s problems.

Disclaimer: Be aware that I know little to nothing about newspaper business models, except that online ad revenue is a joke (funny: scared, not funny: haha) and that Craigslist is Satan reborn as free, online classifieds.