If what LAObserved says is correct, everyone’s (least-)favorite media vandal Sam Zell is currently kicking 75 more people off the already-decimated staff of the Los Angeles Times.

Among those, apparently, is Leo Wolinsky, the former managing editor, who I believe started there as a copy boy more than a couple decades ago. If I find out any more names from sources inside, I’ll pass them on.

At this point, you gotta wonder what the hell Zell’s up to: He’s been methodically stripping away the only product of unique value the paper has to offer against the internet – its journalism, without addressing the real root of the problem: They’re an information company in a digital age blowing thousands of dollars a day on putting yesterday’s news on dead trees.

Content’s been getting thinner every year due to the shrinking news-hole caused by the die-off of the print-ad market, and now that syndicated content seems to be flowing through Times pages in greater quantity, it’s ceasing to look so much like the flagship of west-coast journalism it was in the 80s and 90s …

It’s pretty plain Zell couldn’t give a pressman’s fuck about the product, let alone the audience he’s alienating at warp speed.

So does he even have a strategy? If it’s all about the bottom line, when’s he gonna quit bleeding the place and do the right thing – sell it to (if they’ll have it) Eli Broad, David Geffen, or any of a number of suitors who’ve waived good money and good intentions at the Times over the years?

Update: A source inside the building says it’ll be 25 to 75 layoffs, and the victims will be told next week. This is, of course, bulldozing whatever morale has survived so far.

(h/t: Ed Padgett)

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2. LA Times: Please kill me
3. “Sam Zell, Please Sell the LA Times – Now!” – 40 year Subscriber
4. LA Bloggers plan to take out the Times
5. LA Times print cutbacks AGAIN