Michael Fabac is out as news director at KXAN in Austin.

Although KXAN general manager Eric Lassberg was not immediately available for comment, Austin360 confirmed with newsroom staffers today that Fabac’s five-year tenure as the NBC-affiliate’s news director has come to an end.

Fabac’s departure comes a month after Austin media blogger Jim McNabb reported that newsroom morale was slipping amid the departures of a handful of reporters.

A tipster emailed this afternoon to report that “many in the newsroom are headed for celebratory drinks this evening.”

Fabac came to KXAN in 2007 after serving as news director at KLRT in Little Rock.  Prior to that, he was the ND at WNEM in Flint, MI.