The Journalism Shop launched yesterday. They describe themselves on the site:

Over the past couple of years the Los Angeles Times and its corporate owner, Tribune, have undergone an epic financial crunch which has led to the jettisoning of hundreds of veteran journalists. We are some of them. Our ranks include veteran political journalists, fashion writers, award-winning investigative journalists and a wide raft of the invisible folks of newspapers - line editors, copy editors, page designers and researchers.

We talked to former LA Times staffer Brett Levy (also see: WriteThru.com) who runs the site. He told us that within the past 36 hours of their soft launch one of the members of the site is "in talks" about work.

The site has no ads, it just showcases the resumes of journos who have left or been left by the LAT. "It's more like a co-op or a club at this point," says Levy.

Currently there are roughly 24 members listed on the site, including Scott Martelle, Nona Yates, Nancy Wride, Kristina Lindgren, Janet Wilson, Greg Johnson, Lynne Heffley, Lynn Smith, Rick Schmitt, Jim Fowler, Susannah Rosenblatt, Elizabeth Douglass, Robin Rauzi, Saul Daniels, Richard Cromelin, Robyn Norwood, Rosemary McClure, Karen Chaderjian, Craig Matsuda and Susan Brink.

Is this the solution to the woes of the laid off? Well, when the going gets tough - the tough go freelance.

We have our fingers crossed for all of them.