Until recently, Tribune's management chipped away at the newsroom with small but frequent reductions and left empty positions unfilled -- calling it "death by a thousand paper cuts." In late 2005, the newsroom had 670 employees, but four rounds of cuts sliced this 14% to 578 by July 2008. (Print and online staffs are combined.)

The casualty rate ramped up in July 2008, when the newsroom cut 80 more positions, or about 14% of the total. Since then, attrition lowered it from about 500 to 480; the latest round of cuts will bring it to about 370, or just 55% of its size less than four years ago.

Overall, Tribune's successive managements have wielded the ax with abandon on both editorial and business operations. From a total of 25,600 employees in 2001, after its acquisition of the Times Mirror Co., the company slimmed down to around 18,000 at the end of 2008, cutting about 30% of the original workforce.

It's probably no coincidence that the latest round of cuts, first reported by Crain's Chicago Business Journal, broke alongside rumors that the long-planned sale of the Chicago Cubs will be delayed for another month.

Although Tribune boss Sam Zell originally said he would not part with the Cubs, as print revenues plunged and the economy deteriorated, the sale of the team franchise became a key part of his plans to keep Tribune afloat.

The failure to sell the Cubs forced Zell to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December. Earlier this year, Tribune agreed to sell the Cubs to the Ricketts family for $900 million, with the deal scheduled to close in May. However, the Ricketts have had difficulty arranging financing, meaning that the deal will not close before June.

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