The Incredible Shrinking Sun

What's left of our hometown newspaper?

The venerable Baltimore Sun yesterday announced another round of layoffs, this time cutting its newsroom staff by a third. According to its own story, the reductions hit nearly every type of job in the 205-person newsroom, including top editors, news photographers, critics, columnists, sports reporters, copy editors, page designers and graphic artists.

Former Sun-y David Ettlin's blog, The Real Muck, has a riveting and very saddening recount of the past week at the newspaper, where as many as 61 newsroom employees, many people with 10, 15, 20-plus years of service, lost their jobs with no warning.

It's no secret that newspapers everywhere are struggling to reinvent themselves in this digital age. Even the New York Times recently cut employee salaries by 5%. But it seems to me that few papers have stumbled as badly as the Sun, which is owned by the bankrupt Tribune Company. While there still are plenty of talented writers and reporters on Calvert Street, these days it seems I can read the entire paper in less than a half hour.

If it keeps shrinking and shrinking, the only logical conclusion is that soon it will be gone.