Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli this morning announced another round of buyouts—the fifth since 2003—but this one sounds more like a layoff.

For one, the Post will offer the buyouts to selected individuals. And this time, Brauchli explicitly says, “We may turn down some volunteers if we feel their departure would impair our journalism.”

More than a few Post writers were taken off guard by Brauchli’s buyout alert. Asked last week in chats with reporters if rumors of a buyout were true, he put them down.

“He lied,” says one reporter.

No doubt the Post must reduce its costs. Revenues for the Post Company plunged last year due to declining enrollment in Kaplan, the company’s for-profit college. And the newspaper division continued to lose advertising revenue and readers. In the third quarter of 2011, print advertising revenue was down 13 percent. Daily circulation fell 5.4 percent.

Brauchli said, “It is important that we achieve real savings.”

For veteran reporters, those savings will come by lopping off higher salaries. Brauchli mentioned that “we will continue making tactical hires, so that even as we get smaller, we get stronger.”

In the newsroom, that means hiring younger, less expensive staffers.

Brauchli’s memo was short on details, but he called for two “Town Hall meetings,” one at 11 AM and another at 4:30 today.

He has some explaining to do.

Todd Gillman will help translate Rick Perry in Washington. Photograph of Gillman courtesy of Todd Gillman

Here comes Rick Perry, another swashbuckling governor from Texas who would be President. Social Security’s a Ponzi scheme! Time for Texas to secede! Ben Bernanke might be treasonous!

“Think he’s crazy?” asks Jay Root, who covers Perry for the Texas Tribune. “Watch out—Rick Perry has the best political radar that’s ever been created.”

“This guy’s political instincts are incredible,” says Todd Gillman, Washington bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News.

Post watchers are chewing over the decision of Washington Post officials to close suburban bureaus, trying to figure out the true impact on local coverage and implications for the newspaper’s future.

“We take them at their word,” said reporter and union leader Fred Kunkle, “but we’re worried this means we won’t be committed to aggressively covering the region.”

“I hope this is truly not a retrenchment,” said Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton.

The truth is that the Post quit aggressively covering the Washington region years ago, perhaps as early as 2000. And executive editor Marcus Brauchli’s surrender to the business side’s pressure to close bureaus is beyond retrenchment—it’s a retreat.

President Barack Obama receives a national security briefing from John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism, in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Aug. 19, 2011. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

If you read a Washington Post story from Martha’s Vineyard about President Obama’s vacation on the island, it will most likely be coming to you second-hand. For the first time in recent memory, the Post has decided not to send a reporter to cover a presidential trip.

“From a news perspective,” political editor Steven Ginsberg to an e-mail query, “this wasn’t a very tough call. On vacations like this one, access to the president is highly limited and news is rare. We are in a much better position to cover President Obama and his administration without going to Martha’s Vineyard for 10 days.”

Politico made a different call and sent White House correspondent Carrie Budoff Brown. Mark Landler has been writing from Edgartown for the New York Times. The TV networks and cable channels have festooned the New England haunt for the wealthy with satellite dishes for their correspondents.

Alexandra Petri has become the Post’s go-to writer for laughs. Photograph by Erik Uecke 

When Oprah Winfrey ended her talk show, a nation genuflected—except for a 23-year-old writer for the Washington Post.

“There are two ways to love yourself, Oprah says,” Alexandra Petri wrote on her blog, ComPost. “Loving yourself, and loving Oprah, because Oprah is Just Like You, But Better.”

Compare Petri’s sendup with that of the Post’s Sally Quinn, who declared Winfrey to be “America’s high priestess.”

Quinn came off as fawning next to Petri, who wrote: “I do not mean this with any disrespect to Oprah. A friend of mine once meant disrespect to Oprah, and all his window treatments turned on him.”

Petri has been poking fun at the rich, famous, and political since editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt anointed her a year ago as his comic blogger and occasional editorialist. “If you want to understand Snooki or Weinergate,” he says, “she is the person to see.”

There are a handful of moves to report this week.

Stanley Crosley, former chief privacy officer for Eli Lilly & Company, has joined Drinker Biddle & Reath as of counsel on the pharmaceutical team.

Foley & Lardner has added Toni Hickey as senior counsel in its intellectual property department, from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Hickey was most recently deputy chief of staff to the director of the Patent and Trademark Office.

The National Association of Manufacturers has welcomed two new members to its government-relations team. Lauren Airey joined NAM from Republican Congressman Donald Manzullo’s office, where she was senior legislative assistant. Erik Glavich joined from the Public Consulting Group in Chicago, where he was a consultant.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has added two partners from King & Spalding. Christopher Keough and Stephanie Ann Webster both now belong to Akin Gump’s health-industry practice.

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