Kansas City Star orders furloughs

? The Kansas City Star is ordering one-week unpaid furloughs for most of its employees and offering voluntary buyouts as it continues to deal with falling revenues.

Publisher Mark Zieman told employees in a memo Tuesday there was no target number for buyouts, but it would be smaller than the most recent round of layoffs. Those cuts were announced in March, when The Star said it planned to lay off 150 employees.

The Star, like most newspapers, has seen advertising revenue fall dramatically from the recession and advertisers diverting more spending to the Internet. Zieman said that while ad sales improved in June and July, they are still running behind a year ago.

Zieman also said the newspaper’s parent company, Sacramento-based McClatchy Co., was extending a wage freeze until January.