Heads are rolling in the Arlington offices of Washingtonpost.com, the longtime WaPo Web lab that is now undergoing a merger with the Post newsroom in downtown D.C. According to a knowledgeable source, the ranks of the RIFed number around ten so far.

City Desk is working on compiling a list of the dismissed, which reportedly includes at least one big industry name.

Meanwhile, one question looms: Are these layoffs? Or just strategic reductions aimed at redundant positions, as Post management would have us believe?

Consider the case of one dismissed employee. This individual was told that the "numbers have been bad on the digital side and because of that, that's why they're doing it."

Another victim of the reduction-in-force reports that the motivation is that the Post is moving to streamline its operations.

Updates to come.

Yesterday, the New York Times announced that it would be cutting 100 newsroom jobs via buyouts and layoffs. When the best paper in the country has to cut jobs, that's bad, very bad news. Anyone that's checked out journalismjobs.com lately will tell you that the news industry isn't clamoring for reporters. But the news provoked a surprisingly sympathetic response from Times readers. Some offered to pay money to read the paper's online version!

Will you, dear reader, beg to pay us for our online journalism?

*photo courtesy of mediabistro.

Prince of Petworth posts on the effort/petition to save the Black Rooster. One reader's response:  "i LOVE the black rooster. if the peace corps really closes it down…i just…i might just not go to happy hour anymore, ever, anywhere. and that would make me terribly sad. save the rooster!"

Penn Quarter Living debuts a new column called High Rise Life. The first one is on elevator etiquette. It's not so much a column as bad comment bait of which I am sometimes guilty of. Here's a sampling from PQL's rookie effort on sharing an elevator: "Fob in and offer to push buttons or don’t offer and make sure others belong in the building? Remind neighbors that bicycles and their owners usually ride the freight elevator or zip it? Heel your dog or let him/her sniff around and be friendly? What is good neighborly elevator etiquette?" Fascinating.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: A Metrobus Strikes Again" »

The Washington Teacher blog has posted a link to a 17-page memo sent recently from Jesus Aguirre, the D.C Public Schools' director of school operations, to all DCPS principals, laying out Chancellor Michelle Rhee's guidelines for the impending "reduction in force" she says is necessary because of budget constraints (in the real world, "RIF" means layoffs).

So how will the layoffs go down?

Read More "Anatomy of a DCPS Layoff: On a Scale of Zero to 10, What Are Your “Significant Relevant Contributions”?" »

First the merge, now the purge. FishbowlDC has the scoop: CQ-Roll Call is in the process of laying off 44 employees (writers, editors, etc.) today during a series of meetings. These meetings seem less like meetings than a cattle slaughter. These meetings aren't going to be subtle. One staffer told FishbowlDC that it feels like Schindler's List. FishbowlDC has the internal memo from boss Laurie Battaglia.

It reads in part:

"While this reorganization has many positive elements, there is also an unfortunate consequence of this assessment, and that is the elimination of 44 editorial positions, spread across all newsrooms. These decisions, along with our earlier commercial changes, have been extremely difficult to make, and are now made only after a nearly two-month painstaking effort to review our editorial teams and determine our needs going forward. But we are happy to now say that our restructure is complete, and no further personnel reductions of this nature are forthcoming."

We know what these things are like. Our hearts go out to those staffers cut. Politico has a small item on the cuts.

Here are a few words used in yesterday's press release from the D.C. Public School system about the coming teacher layoffs: "equalization," "right-size," "reduction-in-force," "align staffing," and "required separations."

One word not used: "layoffs."

Read More "Some More Handy Layoff Euphemisms for D.C. Public Schools" »

From the Above the Law blog's reporting, the Kilpatrick Stockton law firm sent around an e-mail this morning detailing a possible suicide or crime scene in their 14th Street offices. The e-mail stated:

"Good morning,

Please remain in our space until further notice. Metropolitan Police Department are currently responding to an unconscious male with a gunshot wound to the head on the 11th floor of Kilpatrick & Stockton. We are contacting building management to determine further information.

We will keep you posted.

Thank you."

Read More "Kilpatrick Stockton Firm Wakes Up To Bloody Scene" »

This morning, LL was all over Fenty's announced District gov job cuts. Our aggressive political scribe reported: "Of the remaining 776 employees the mayor is proposing to lay off, 250 are in DCPS—mostly teachers aides and support staff, Tangherlini says." This may not seem like scary news, but it is.

I know what your thinking: teachers aides and support staff seem like easy cuts. What the hell do teacher aides do? What does support staff mean? Let me guess what they do: they help handle over-crowded classrooms, offer tutoring, lesson planning and generally help teachers get through the day. I'm not sure about support staff. But it could mean social workers, guidance counselors, secretaries, and librarians.

Do we really want to cut funding for these jobs? These cuts are coming on the heels of all those school closures last year. Catania made the argument today on the Politics Hour that enrollment is down at DCPS and that more and more kids are going into charter schools. But for every successful charter school, there are stories like City Lights Public Charter which recently had to close its doors before the school year even finished.

Read More "Fenty’s Proposed Layoffs Should Avoid DCPS" »