Free Republic

The reinvention of the San Jose Mercury News began with an undercover operation. More than 100 staffers fanned out to places like a nearby Starbucks, asking people what they thought of the paper, disclosing only that they worked for a local media company. Now they are cooking up plans for a smaller, radically different product. "The very top of the organization is saying, blow up the newsroom," says Chris O'Brien, a reporter immersed in the overhaul effort. Under one prototype, the paper would be cut back to three sections: Live, Play and Innovate. In a second blueprint, it would junk...

The Mercury News will reduce its newsroom staff by 40 positions through layoffs that will take place in July, the company announced Tuesday. The reduction - a nearly 17 percent cut - will leave the paper with 200 newsroom positions, down from a peak seven years ago of about 400. The cuts are in response to declining advertising revenues, said Executive Editor Carole Leigh Hutton. "Revenue is not growing in the Mercury News," Hutton told the staff at a meeting Tuesday to announce the layoffs. "We have to offset some of that revenue loss with cost cuts." Since 2000, the...