Mark Pellin, editor of The Rhino Times, reminds me that we’ve yet to hear anything from the local McClatchy outlet about the big staff merger detailed weeks ago by N&O ombudsman Ted Vaden:

Two other major changes are the combining of the sports and politics staffs of The N&O and sister paper The Charlotte Observer. The two papers’ Capitol staffs will be combined into one, reporting to a Raleigh editor, and the sports staffs will become one, reporting to an editor in Charlotte. Also combined will be the two papers’ research staffs.

And that’s that. Since then I think we’ve had three or four declarations that the Uptown paper of record will not change despite staff reductions. Whatever. There’s lotsa semantic games being played.