HBO’s The Wire website has a feature The Wire: The Last Word, with actors, screenwriters, creator David Simon, along with some media critics and pundits, talking about the narrative arc about the Baltimore Sun in Season Five, regarding newsroom layoffs, buy-outs, and reportorial fabrication by slimy yuppie reporter Scott Templeton….

And from the Newspaper Guild-CWA, No Relief for Newspapers: Although payroll cuts traditionally reach a crescendo in late fall and early winter, as publishers try to put their houses in order for a new fiscal year, layoffs and buyouts are becoming a year-round phenomenon. In recent weeks, the New York Times has said it will eliminate 100 newsroom jobs; Tribune Co. said it will cut 400 to 500 jobs nationwide, including 45 or so at the Guild-represented Baltimore Sun; and the Star Tribune in Minneapolis said it will lay-off 58 and impose an indefinite wage freeze on its non-unionized employees. The Washington Post, meanwhile, will be offering another round of buy-outs next month.

And the Newspaper Guild-CWA’s Save Journalism site…

Simon in the March 2008 Esquire on some nostalgia for the Baltimore Sun newsroom he used to love….

Oh, and Margaret Talbot in The New Yorker with a profile of Simon.