Oregon Media Insiders

Word is that the Portland Tribune is axing all its regular freelance contributors at the end of the month--columnists, lifestyle and arts writers, and other freelance contributors. Regular staff will pick up the slack. The Portland Life section is already down one writer, not to be replaced.

One freelancer grumbles that management overhead at the paper is still pretty top-heavy:

Granted, Pamplin's cut a lot of fat since the days when you could count some 15 "editors" on the Tribune masthead. But it still seems that maintaining high management salaries (including 13 ad reps, when poor ad revenue is the reason for staff cuts) while overworking the lower-paid hourly writers isn't the way to engender employee morale, even if it does save some money.