The downsizing at The Plain Dealer likely was predictable when the Newhouse family -- billionaire owners of the Cleveland newspaper -- brought Terry Egger (in 2006) and Susan Goldberg (2007) here as publisher and editor, respectively.

The paper, we learned last week, planned to reduce the number of pages by 35 each week.  That's a significant reduction.  It means 1,820 fewer news pages during a year.  The cuts, suggesting particularly bad judgment, call for eliminating one of two opinion pages.

The plan also calls for a 20% reduction in the editorial workforce.  That is also significant and follows a recent buyout that reduced the PD's news staff by 17%.

"Pretty gloomy," says a reporter of the staff morale.  Reductions likely mean layoffs, and no or small pay increases.  Younger reporters are most worried, it is said.

Both recently hired bosses -- Egger and Goldberg -- have had experience eliminating staff at other news outlets.  I'd speculate the Newhouse decision to hire them was tied to their experiences in handling downsizings elsewhere.

Egger, whose full name is Terrance C. Z. Egger, was recruited here by Robert Woodward, former president of Pulitzer Inc.  Woodward also worked the sales deal that resulted in the famed Pulitzer news chain and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch being sold for $1 billion.

Both Woodward and Egger became multi-millionaires as a result of their work in completing the Pulitzer sale.

The Newhouse family was part of the Pulitzer sale.  Newhouses' Advance Publications had a deal with the Post-Dispatch to share 50% of its profits after closing a competing newspaper in St. Louis.  The Newhouses apparently liked the way Woodward worked the deal and then employed him to seek a replacement for PD Publisher Alex Machaskee.  Woodward selected Egger

Goldberg was brought here as the PD's first woman editor, from the San Jose Mercury News last year.  She was the executive editor and a vice-president of the newspaper that had recently changed ownership twice.  So she, as Egger, came from a newspaper that had changed hands.

Goldberg had experience also in reducing a newspaper's staff.

In 2005, the Mercury, under Goldberg, lost 16% of its newsroom staff with 52 buyouts.  In 2006, under Goldberg, there was another reduction in the Mercury workforce of 101 with 40 editorial positions eliminated for another 8.5% cut

Thus, she has had experience in sharp staff reductions.

There also remains a question of whether severe cutbacks at the PD are preparation for a sale.  It is a subject of discussion at the paper.  The PD faces and economically declining city and the Newhouses are anything but sentimental when it comes to business.

The St. Louis Journalism Review reported on Egger's substantial financial success at the Post-Dispatch...

"From various company reports and government filings, these figures were gleaned:  Egger got $3.2 million in cash for stock-based compensation when Pulitzer was sold.  He got a Lee (newspaper) retention bonus of $675,000 and a $75,000 transaction incentive.  He could get as much as $900,000 to cover taxes associated with his extra compensation.  Add a $197,000 bonus in lieu of 2004 stock options, and a $112,5000 performance bonus and a $283,013 from his supplemental pension plan.

"His common stock at Pulitzer was valued at $11.4 million... and there's probably more," the reporter noted at the time.

You earn that kind of money by making hard decisions for the boss.  Egger is the man the Newhouses choose to make those hard decisions.

So The Plain Dealer has been set for staff reductions and they will take place over time.

Newspapers nationally are in a financial crunch and workforce reductions have become common.  Some blame the Internet for the newspapers' reduction in advertising, thus their revenues.

Others see bad business decisions and a failure to change as the reasons for the decline of newspapers.  Still others complain that newspapers fail to offer pertinent news that would make it essential (for you) to read a paper daily.

All this may foretell the death of newspapers as we have known them.

They are weak voices, often useless in their prime function -- to tell you What is happening, Why it is happening and Who is making it happen.  The three Ws of a strong-voiced newspaper.

This decline is especially true of the local press.  One can get information on national and international news from various sources -- maybe not the best, as evidenced by the debacle of the Iraqi ward -- but there are alternative sources aplenty, if people are willing to seek them out.

You can't have a democracy without the essential information about what is going on in your community.  It's the lubricant of free speech and debate...  Without it, you don't have a functioning democracy.  Nor can you have a society of equality.  The lack of information breeds inequality.

The constant retreat by newspapers -- by eliminating news pages and experienced staff -- suggests the need for radical change.

One outcome of the daily newspaper's retreat may be more alternative news outlets in print that provide narrower selections of coverage -- publications that don't depend on mass audiences.  They may be dedicated to coverage, say, of just courts, or only politics or certain governmental bodies, or real estate development in all its ramifications.  Others might be limited to our crucial community activities and seek only limited audiences.

These publications wouldn't have to be produced daily.  They would likely have Internet outlets.  Nationally, Politico, a small "newspaper" of politics provides a model.  It has national political coverage on a website and also distributes a printed form three days a week.

Ironically, in a way, we might be going back to the rise of news in colonial times... when vigorous and partisan journalism thrived in small publications.