The snarky tech gossip blog Valleywag has posted a scoop about itself — it is laying off 60 percent of its staff. Gone are associate editors Nicholas Carlson and Jackson West and reporter Melissa Gira Grant.

Gawker Media, owner of Valleywag and several other sites, is laying off 19 of its 133 editorial staff in anticipation of a recession. Gawker owner Nick Denton said that while sales are up 30 percent from a year earlier, and clients in the entertainment and consumer electronics industries are “relatively well insulated,” the credit crisis would hurt advertising after Christmas. Denton wrote, “2009 is obviously going to be exceptionally difficult.”