Five veteran staffers at Montreal’s The Gazette have taken buyouts and will depart the newspaper as of Sept. 1.

Media blogger and Gazette copy editor Steve Faguy tweeted that sports columnist Stephanie Myles, editorial writer and columnist Janet Bagnall, city columnist Henry Aubin, entertainment reporter Bernard Perusse and journalist Dave Bist are leaving.

Five veteran staffers at Montreal’s The Gazette have taken buyouts and will depart the newspaper as of Sept. 1.

Media blogger and Gazette copy editor Steve Faguy tweeted that sports columnist Stephanie Myles, editorial writer and columnist Janet Bagnall, city columnist Henry Aubin, entertainment reporter Bernard Perusse and journalist Dave Bist are leaving.

Four of the journalists on Faguy’s list confirmed their departures with J-Source. Myles said the buyout was “not the ending I would have wanted but I really didn't have much choice.”

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“The others leaving are significantly older than I am, pretty close to retirement age or at it,” she said.

She added executive editor Raymond Brassard was retiring. “He stayed around over the summer to smooth a transition to someone new starting in September,” she wrote in an email.

Lucinda Chodan, currently the editor-in-chief of the Edmonton Journal, will take over for Brassard as editor-in-chief and will also start a new role as the regional vice-president of editorial operations for the Gazette, Ottawa Citizen and Windsor Star.