Publishers cutting into newsroom jobs are in danger of doing away with a long-held standard for the number of journalists needed to serve a newspaper's readers, former Chicago journalist and current Silicon Valley CEO Alan Mutter stated in his Newsosaur blog.

“The unwritten but widely honoured rule of thumb in the industry always has been that a newspaper should employ one journalist for every 1,000 in daily circulation,” Mutter stated.

Mutter was talking about recently announced staff cuts at Tribune Co. newspapers, the Chicago Tribune the Los Angeles Times and the Tampa Tribune.

The Chicago Tribune's plan to cut newsroom employees by 14 percent, to 498 journalists, will lower the journalist-reader ratio to 0.88 for every thousand readers. At the Los Angeles Times, staff cuts will leave a ratio of 0.92, and the Tampa Tribune will have 0.90 journalists for every 1,000 readers, according to Mutter.

The Chicago Tribune's newsroom will be 25.7 percent smaller than in 2005, and Tampa Tribune will have 200 journalists to serve 220,000 readers, Mutter wrote.