For one, the number of major national anchors who did stints in South Florida will astound you. CNN’s Larry King and “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft both did stints at WPLG very early in their careers. King also once worked at current NBC O&O WTVJ, where Katie Couric would later be a general assignment reporter.

“Get this,” says current-HLN anchor and former Miami anchor/health reporter Robin Meade. “When I was at WSVN in 1994-ish, I did the mornings. Rick Sanchez was the main anchor at the station. Shepherd Smith was a street reporter for the same channel. Linda Stouffer (former HLN anchor) was the weekend morning anchor. And Charles Molineaux (former HLN anchor) was my co-anchor in the morning. Soon after I left, I believe Shawn Robinson started doing the mornings there before heading to access Hollywood.”

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“There’s life after whatever job you’re in now,” says former HLN anchor Linda Stouffer.

Stouffer was laid off in December after 12 years at the network.

She was not alone. Dozens of tvnewsers, on air and off, were let go at the end of 2008, as the industry reacted to a turbulent economy. Kevin Corke, John Larson and Mark Mullen of NBC lost their jobs. So did CNN’s Kathleen Koch and Rusty Dornin, HLN’s Carrie Lee, and numerous other journalists at those networks and at CBS News, too. ABC News laid off 35 staffers earlier this year.

Stouffer may have been in good company, but she was still looking to get back to work.

And she did. Three months after leaving HLN, she was picked up by Atlanta’s ABC station, WSB-TV. Stouffer is reporting part-time, hoping “to have some anchor opportunities down the line.”

Good news after an initial jolt. “Job loss is an earthquake of an experience,” says Stouffer, who first took time to “take stock, to see what I wanted to do next.”

It was her “big think.”

After also being laid off in December, former CNN Justice Department/Supreme Court correspondent Kelli Arena has had the chance to reflect, too.

“I’m doing great,” she says. “I had been working non-stop until now.

“The opportunity to just slow down, and take a breath, and not be ruled by my Blackberry is a tremendously different life than the one I had before,” she says.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Stouffer’s last day with the network was yesterday. She had been with Headline News since 1997. Stouffer is married to CBS News reporter Mark Strassman.

Dornin has been with CNN since 1991. She was most recently based in Atlanta but had been in the San Francisco bureau for many years. She’s covered stories ranging from the California governor’s recall to the murder of Laci Peterson.

Since Friday, TVNewser has reported four other correspondents leaving the network, including Jamie McIntyre and Kelli Arena. The email Arena sent to her colleagues is after the jump…

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.