Less than two weeks removed from losing four leading editors and reporters, AOL hit another roadblock yesterday with five more departures from their writing team.  Dan Frommer reported the following changes at AOL:

Senior beauty editor Laura Kenney and style news editor Susannah Cahn are leaving AOL’s StyleList

Jennifer Fields is vacating her post as senior editor at AOL Health

 AOL Music will lose editor/journalist Jessica Robertson to MTV

Eric Scottberg is no longer senior editor of Lemondrop

Read more

The bloodshed has begun in earnest at Forbes on this cold, rainy day: 100 employees were let go from the billionaire listing magazine, including Lauren Sherman, the girlfriend of Silicon Alley Insider writer Dan Frommer:

Some of our friends and former colleagues were let go as well. We knew they were coming, but we didn’t realize how deep the staff cuts would be. Although we’re hearing that close to 100 people have lost their jobs company wide, David Carr reported that between 40 and 60 editorial staff members would get the axe. Those sort of cuts are huge in a staff of only 200. Who is left?

Know anyone else who got a pink slip from Forbes today? Send us an email or leave a note in the anonymous tip box at right.

UPDATE: We reached out to Forbes‘ senior VP of Corporate Communications Monie Begley to see if she would confirm any of the rumors about the number of people laid off there. “Forbes will not be confirming the number of layoffs that have occurred this week,” Begley said in a statement. “It is a very sad day at the company and a sad day for our colleagues and friends.”

Another Update: Our sister blog MediaJobsDaily did some digging and found some names of those let go by Forbes today. In addition to Sherman, London bureau chief Anita Raghavan, associate editor Chana Schoenberger, deputy chief of reporters Andy Stone, assistant editor Klaus Kneale and reporter Anna Vander Broek are also said to have gotten pink slips. We’ve also heard sad news about reporter Lauren Streib, who has worked on link-bait Forbes lists like the recent Top-Earning Dead Celebs List.

More names: We’ve been hearing more names of people cut from Forbes: ForbesLife editor-in-chief Gary Walther; longtime Billionaires List contributor Tatiana Serafin; Richard Morais; Zack O’Malley Greenburg; Jack Gage; John Chamberlain and Bill Heuslien. Keith Kelly is also reporting that Los Angeles bureau chief Scott Woolley, senior editor Bernard Condon and Jonathan Latimer, head of business development, were given the axe.

Earlier: Breaking: More Layoffs Hit Forbes

–Additional reporting by Drew Grant

CNN launched a new $1.99 iPhone app today.

That, in itself, might be some pretty interesting news, what with a cable news channel charging for an application that is similar to what other news organizations are giving out for free. The idea raises questions about the future of paid content: Is there an audience for this? Will people buy it? Who will launch the next paid app?

But beyond that, this announcement has been clouded by other journalistic questions, namely the use of embargoes and their necessity. Our sister blog PRNewser reports that Reuters reporter Robert MacMillan was upset by the fact that a rival reporter at Associated Press member paper The OC Register broke an embargo that would have kept CNN’s announcement under wraps until midnight.

“PS, we were going to hold this until midnight because it was embargoed,” MacMillan wrote. “That embargo has been broken, so bombs away.”

Should CNN have embargoed this news? As news of the embargo break hit Twitter last night, Silicon Alley Insider editor Dan Frommer noted how unremarkable this sort of announcement had become. “‘Company X has an iPhone app’ is the new ‘Company X has a website,’ he said.

All Things Digital columnist Peter Kafka agreed, advising his fellow reporters to stop accepting embargoes for iPhone apps.

Do you think he’s right? There are thousands of apps with new ones, paid and unpaid, announced by media companies every day. Just yesterday, the AP launched one of its own, charging $28.99 for access to its 2009 Stylebook. And today, another release arrived in our inbox announcing the second iPhone app created by Rodale‘s Women’s Health magazine, a free app called “Your Slim-Down Shopping List.”

Some of these apps are innovative ways to possibly create new revenue streams for struggling companies, but is every little announcement newsworthy? Or better yet, embargo-worthy? What do you think?

PRNewser: Reuters Reporter Upset As AP Breaks CNN iPhone App Embargo