Ken Doctor's 'Newsonomics,' a Fitz & Jen Book Review Bollinger Named 'Aberdeen American News' Publisher While Leone on Medical Leave Remembering Subscribers in Mill Valley -- By Painting Stripes in Front of Their Houses 'Times-Picayune' Presses Still Spinning for Super Bowl Victory Edition Media General Also Paying High Price To Spread Out Debt Missouri's Only Gay Newspaper Comes Back From Dead, But as Magazine Minneapolis 'Star Tribune' Achieves Record Web Month Union, Management Set Tuesday Meeting on 'Newsday' Financial Status 'N.Y. Times' Ombudsman: I'd Transfer Jerusalem Bureau Chief With Son in Israeli Army Tribune Co. D.C. Deputy Named 'Wall St. Journal' National Politics Editor | This week's top stories Mediaweek: Top Headlines

LITTLE ROCK The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is laying off as many as 60 people, including seven who work in newsrooms.

The paper, which has about 1,300 employees, informed workers Monday. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is the largest newspaper in the state.

Paul Smith, president of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Inc., says the paper has eliminated 30 to 40 jobs in Little Rock and about 20 in its northwest Arkansas bureau. The cut amounts to a reduction of about 4.5 percent.

Last summer, the newspaper imposed a hiring freeze and also froze wages. The paper in January asked for volunteers to work fewer hours and about 25 employees elected to work 32 hours a week.

Smith said advertising revenue is continuing to drop throughout the industry. He also said that the paper is losing ad sales due to the sale of Little Rock-based Alltel Corp. and the bankruptcy of Circuit City and Goody's clothing stores. He said those accounts alone will cost the Democrat-Gazette about $1.2 million in 2009.

Smith said positions were eliminated in every area of the company's operations.

"It's not so much ... a desire to make a lot of money, but it's just a desire to not get ourselves into such a hole ... that we can't come out of it," Smith said. "Nobody knows how much longer this is going to last and how much worse it's going to get."