Los Angeles Daily News hit with staff cuts

The paper is eliminating zone coverage that will eliminate 8 jobs. The company is offering a buyout package of one week's pay for every year of service up to 6 years and 3 months paid COBRA coverage.

Guild leader Brent Hopkins blogs at The Paper Trail:

... today is a terrible day. Once again, MediaNews' corporate moneyhounds have put profit ahead of people and good journalism, and that's horrible for everyone involved. While the overall job loss should be relatively minor, that doesn't matter much when it's your job that's eliminated.

Recently, Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group (flagship paper is The Denver Post) has expanded his MediaNews empire in California (41 properties)and is merging some and closing other newspaper operations in the San Francisco Bay area and just completed a massive staff slash at the San Jose Mercury News.