By FERN SHEN
Baltimore Sun management described its massive layoffs yesterday – 61 editorial-side staffers cut, a third of the 205-person newsroom – as a strategy for “success, not just survival, ” part of their transition into  ”a 24-hour local news-gathering media company.”

These brief comments in a small story on the Sun’s business page were pretty much all the explanation they were offering.

((UPDATE: Sun publisher Tim Ryan today sent a memo to staff   ‘regretting’ the impact of layoffs, explaining they’re part of a restructuring that will leave them better positioned to “help our company succeed and win in the future.”  Click through to read it.))

Brutal though it is, they seem to be saying, it’s the only way. Will Baltimore buy that?

Making a virtue of necessity is, of course, what management does at a time like this, though it was surely cold comfort for the casualties of “transition.” Sportswriters Rick Maese and David Steele and others got the word while covering a game at Camden Yards. Editor Patricia Fanning got it while editing a story.

“Colleagues cheered and applauded staffers leaving the building” after learning their fate, according to former Sun rewrite man David Ettlin.

Ettlin did a terrific job of gathering these poignant stories, the kind replayed, really, across the city and across the country at brokerage firms, restaurants, auto plants, landscaping companies — all the places where jobs have been disintegrating.

And that’s management’s rationale for the massacre: the economy did it. And the Internet. Sun editor J. Montgomery “Monty” Cook laid it out in a speech recently at Johns Hopkins.

Questions for Monty
Cook and the handful of others remaining on the masthead have not made themselves available to answer questions (the complany shut out a radio reporter yesterday, forbidding him from interviewing a Guild representative in the Sun building’s lobby.)

But Sun managers would probably say, if you cornered one in an elevator: ‘It stinks but revenue’s in the toilet and eyeballs have moved to the Internet and what else could we have done?’ They’d point out that the website is growing traffic numbers, if not revenue.

So, what do you say back, at that point, Brew readers?

‘Why are you decimating the thing instead of selling it?’

‘Why do you put great editors and writers out on the street and continue to produce the money-losing “b?” (Need we remind readers about the infamous ”Douchebag!” cover piece?)

Send us your thoughts (click the teeny tiny comment bubble at the top right-hand side of this post.) What would you say to Monty Cook or Tim Ryan?

——-

Here is Ryan’s memo:

Conversation: Message from Tim Ryan

Subject: Message from Tim Ryan

To All Employees:

Over the past year we at The Baltimore Sun Media Group (BSMG) have made many changes to help our company succeed and win in the future. One of these changes is restructuring our newsroom so we can more effectively gather content and distribute it to our readers in ways they choose. Unfortunately, this also meant that we had to layoff a number of people. These are always difficult decisions, and we regret the impact they have on staff and their families.

It is important for you to know that The Baltimore Sun will continue to have as many news reporters covering the region as before. We retain, by far, the largest news-gathering staff in Maryland, three times as large as any other competitor. Our news reporters will be deployed strategically to provide 24-hour news with a focus on local community issues and events, as well as “watchdog” investigative reporting.

Our future lies in our ability to develop and deliver quality content across many platforms to many diverse audiences. While The Baltimore Sun and baltimoresun.com remain an integral part of BSMG, we also publish 28 local community newspapers, b, our free publication for young adults, magazines, specialty publications and other Web sites. Every week, 9 out of 10 households receive at least one BSMG product.

The changes we are making – with the continued support of our entire team here at BSMG – will ensure that we are able to provide current and future generations of readers with the same outstanding news and information we have for the past 171 years.