Gawker is reporting that the New York Times has just completed its "first ever" newsroom layoffs. According to the email editor Bill Keller sent around,

While layoffs have become all too common across our industry, this is the first time the newsroom as a whole has confronted that blunt reality, and we approach it with a heavy heart

It is understood that some of the departures being announced today are of the nature of "forced buyouts" — layoffs, in other words, though the newspaper won't make the distinction obvious in order to spare the feelings of the staff it is letting go.