In a two-day period, the Bay Area News Group got a new newsroom leader and announced that it was reducing its copy desk staff by 11 people. President and Publisher Sharon Ryan announced April 21 that Neil Chase, who most recently was a consultant, will become executive editor of the group of newspapers and websites that includes the Mercury News, East Bay Times and 30 weekly publications. The next day, BANG’s managing editor/content, Bert Robinson, sent this memo describing how the company will deal with the elimination of 11 copy editing positions. “The bottom line is that we will be eliminating a layer of valuable editing across most of the copy desk — what is known in desk parlance as the rim,” Robinson wrote.