Journalist maps newsroom layoffs

In case you haven't seen it, Erica Smith, a newspaper and multimedia designer for the St. Louis Post Dispatch has created Paper Cuts, an interactive map showing buyouts and layoffs in the newspaper industry.

Though it's depressing (she counts 4,494 positions lost in the first six months of 2008 and more than 2,100 eliminated in the last seven months of 2007), it does give you a sense of which papers are cutting back, merging or folding.

Smith says she got the idea for the map in May 2007 after reading an article about job cuts in Editor & Publisher.

Keep in mind that jobs aren't necessarily lost forever. Some papers laying off and buying out veteran reporters one day may be hiring eager, young journalists with multimedia skills another.