The St. Louis Post-Dispatch business desk is three employees lighter after a buyout offer from the paper was accepted by some workers.
Those leaving the business desk are copy editor John Linstead, reporter Repps Hudson and columnist Joe Whittington. Also accepting the buyout offer was a news aide.
Linstead is best known for being beaten by Chicago police during the 1968 Democratic National Convention while a reporter for the Chicago Daily News. He spent 29 years at the Post-Dispatch and now plans to hike the Appalachian Trail.
Hudson covered agriculture, construction and workplace issues for the paper. He has been a newspaper journalist most of the last 35 years, including 20 years with the Post-Dispatch as an editorial writer, political editor, business reporter and columnist.
And Whittington will continue to write a weekly column on business people and business deals on a freelance basis, said business editor Andre Jackson.
Whittington came to the Post-Dispatch in 1976 from the Houston Post where for 10 years he was a sportswriter and a news editor. He started at the Post-Dispatch on the news copy desk and progressed to assistant city editor, night city editor, city editor and news editor. For the last six years he has worked on the business copy desk.
