The news in the last week has been grim: 250 layoffs at the LA Times including 150 in news; 29 jobs cut by MediaNews in the East Bay, at least 17 at the Mercury News, six jobs cut at the Palo Alto Daily News. But Alan Mutter (pictured), a venture capitalist and former Chron editor, says layoffs aren’t keeping pace with the erosion of advertising in newspapers.

If sales continue falling as steeply in the back half of 2008 as they did in the first six months, then the number of positions in peril would likely be even greater than the number of jobs that theoretically should have been scrapped in the prior two years.