• Motor City Muckracker, Wednesday, June 13, 2012 4:34 PM

It's been a bad time for newspapers lately. The layoffs at New Orleans's Time-Picayune -- including the firing of its restaurant critic, perhaps an odd move for a city whose identity is so bound up with food -- were expected after the news of its diminished publishing schedule. As reported in the New York Times, however,  "while about half the newsroom was let go on Tuesday — around 84 people — a coming series of hires would mean that by fall the newsroom would be smaller by only about 32 people."

That paper is owned by Advance Publications (part of the same Newhouse-owned empire in which Conde Nast dwells), which made other cuts in Southern cities: "In Alabama, 400 jobs are being chopped at the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times and the Mobile Press-Register," reports the New York Post.

Meanwhile, "the Detroit Free Press plans to sizably reduce its staff of reporters, and one of its top editors is leaving," writes Steve Neavling.

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