Heartbreaking photos of a laid-off newsroom

Like I needed another reminder of what an emptying newsroom looks like?

I'm sure I would not have stumbled across the work of San Jose Mercury News designer Martin Gee without Robb Montgomery posting these photos documenting the impact of a layoff. (He posted them in his own blog, but I stumbled across them over in the Editor's Blog, where the comments get interesting too.

Of course, I picked up especially on the part of depressed journalists.

Which reminds me - have you seen the map created by Erica Smith in her PaperCuts blog. Her Google map mashup includes information about each layoff/buyout/etc. You can see the 2,185 layoffs of 2007 or the 1,171 for 2008 map. I've been meaning to mention it for weeks now,thanks to Charles Apple, who has a blog over on Montgomery's Visual Editors site, interviewed her in February.

Mmmm. So what are all those laid off, bought out journalists doing? That's one of the new things I'm collecting