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According to multiple sources inside the Press-Register, the management of Mobile’s daily newspaper has made a buyout offer to its employees in an effort to cull the number of people on the payroll, Lagniappe has learned.

According to sources, the buyout is an across-the-board offer to all P-R employees. It is said to be an offer of two weeks pay for every year of employment in exchange for leaving the newspaper. New P-R Publisher Ricky Mathews, who also has oversight over Newhouse’s other Alabama newspapers, the Huntsville Times and Birmingham News, has not yet responded to calls to discuss the buyout offers.

A report from mediaofBirmingham.com says employees in Huntsville and Birmingham also received the buyout offer yesterday. In Birmingham, this is the third buyout offer in 16 months. Birmingham News Publisher Victor Hansen III recently retired as well, although the News is said to be looking for a new publisher.

We understand the buyout offer is one week per year of service for part-time employees, and that the maximum amount of pay that can be taken is six months.

The buyout offer comes less than two months before the now-famous “Newhouse Pledge” is set to expire Feb. 6. That pledge was one the company made to employees saying it would never lay them off due to financial reasons. The company reneged on the pledge recently after a severe financial downturn.

Despite the buyout offers, the company has made statements that there would be no layoffs after the pledge expires. The buyouts are limited to non-union employers.

Those who have spoken with Lagniappe on condition of anonymity say the buyout offer is frightening with the looming date of Feb. 6 fast approaching. Most fear layoffs will come and are contemplating getting out with something now rather than nothing later. Some have even said they are contemplating getting out of journalism altogether. However, others enjoy their work and are saddened by the state of the P-R’s finances in specific and the Newhouse Corporation in general.

Many newspapers across the country are also laying off or buying out older, more highly paid employees in an attempt to lighten their financial burdens as they face enormous downturns in advertising and readership. While all blame their woes on the Internet and the movement of readers to the Web, some media observers have started to also blame the dumbing down of the news product offered at many chain newspapers and the lack of focus on telling local stories that can’t be easily gotten on the Web.

Most chain-owned dailies continue to fill the majority of their pages with wire copy and syndicated articles that come at a cheaper price, but also can easily be read online a day or two before being available in the newspaper.

There is no word on whether the buyout offer has an expiration date, or what specific reduction goals the paper would like to achieve.