Journalism Industry Reels From Week Of Job Cuts

The holiday season is proving to be a bitter time for many in the journalism industry, as a wave of layoffs and buyouts hits publication after publication.

In just the past week, the cuts have come at a blistering pace.

Roughly 120 staffers at The Daily found themselves out of a job when Rupert Murdoch shuttered the iPad newspaper on Monday.

The New York Times said it would ask at least 30 staffers to sign up for voluntary buyouts and threatened that it would have to lay people off if there were not enough takers.

Newsweek began what staffers fear will be a massive editorial purge.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer told its union employees to expect about a third of the newsroom staff to be cut.

And the Guardian announced that it is seeking to reduce its staff by 68 across its various titles.

The New York Observer called it a "media winter" on Monday after The Daily and the Times announced their cuts.

Of course, job cuts have by no means been confined to the chilly seasons. Paper Cuts, a website that tracks newspaper layoffs, estimates that there have been at least 1,850 jobs cut from papers across the country in 2012. Most prominently, the Advance newspaper chain has begun an aggressive downsizing strategy, making deep reductions in papers from New Orleans to New York.