The N&R lays off 41 workers. Cone has inside sources and a preliminary newsroom tally of 11 full-timers and six part-timers gone.
In a brief post, N&R editor John Robinson says a “bunch of outstanding journalists — a bunch of outstanding people — left here today.”
Not outstanding enough, I guess.
Update: Cone has more updates, including a “source close to the situation” who has some interesting insight into Lorraine Ahearn’s coverage of the controversy surrounding former Police Chief David Wray:
But most reporters at the paper, or at least my young friends, were demoralized well before today by management’s incapability to do the things on the Web site they’ve been talking about for years. Demoralized by the Wray coverage, which hurt our credibility — not necessarily because it was wrong, but because Lorraine never should have gotten a single byline on it (appearances, unfortunately, matter).
Layoffs, employees bitching in a real-time public forum and a metro columnist who just lost her last shred of credibility. Not good.
