As our sister site FBNY has noted, Sam Zell's cost-cutting, paper-shrinking, job-eliminating formula for increasing revenue has been done before. By the very people who drove the Tribune Co. into the ground and then sold the bloody pulpy mess to Zell.

But our favorite new/old trick is the byline count. We were subject to the byline count as a measure of our worth in a previous life, and we know just how much of a morale-booster this can be. Not to mention that people who do things like bring down nefarious leaders, expose institutional wrongs and protect the public good generally don't churn out copy with the frequency of an obit writer.

Well, if anyone at the LAT is discouraged enough, we might soon be looking for a third blogger...