Redundancies are terrifying. Right now, all the news reports are focusing on statistics. 90 lost here, wage freezes there.

Soon we can expect to learn of the human side. The personal losses, the mortgages not paid, the ‘Christmas is cancelled’ stories of once great journos assigned — wrongly — to the scrapheap.

It’s getting so bad, in fact, that blog software company SixApart is offering free Typepad accounts to any journos who have recently been given the chop. They’ll be signed up to the advertising scheme too, meaning they can potentially blog their way into a little money. The emphasis on little.

And I’ve just spotted this on the Reuters Mediafile blog. They quote from Editor and Publisher:

But as The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. slowly says farewell to 151 newsroom folks who took buyouts last month, at least two longtime journalists have been reassigned to the mailroom.

Reporter Jason Jett and Assistant Deputy Photo Editor Mitchell Seidel have been filing, sorting, and delivering mail for more than a week, according to sources.

Scary.

For an idea of just how bad it is around the UK, take a look at this neat interactive timeline the Guardian has patched together:

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