It's true: Arch-conservative Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Peter Bronson has been laid off.

Earlier today, Bronson posted a message on his blog, Bronson Is Always Right, bidding farewell to his readers. It was posted under the headline, "Unemployment Statistics Increase -- Including Me." The item was posted at 4:54 p.m. but appears to have been later scrubbed from the Web site by newspaper management.

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UPDATE: Although CityBeat got this list from sources within The Enquirer's Elm Street offices, some bloggers now say James Jackson hasn't been laid off. With no official word forthcoming from The Enquirer or Mr. Jackson, we'll change his status to "unclear."

UPDATE II: Jackson just tweeted the following, circa 10:30 p.m. "In this economy, these are tough times for all, and I'm so sad about friends losing their jobs, equally grateful also still to have mine."

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People in the media industry have been dreading it for a while, and now it's finally here: "Black Wednesday."

Mass layoffs began today at newspapers owned by The Gannett Co., which includes The Cincinnati Enquirer. As with past layoffs at the paper, details of which staffers were affected are leaking in spurts and fits, but here's what we know so far.

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A recent blog item by Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Peter Bronson has generated plenty of national attention for the newspaper, all of the negative variety.

Bronson posted comments July 1 on his ironically titled blog, Bronson is Always Right, which criticized the long-delayed appointment of writer and comedian Al Franken as one of Minnesota’s senators. Accompanying the item was a photograph of Franken wearing a diaper, bunny ears and holding a stuffed animal. Bronson wrote, “There must be some great ads to be made from Franken’s clips and quips."

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In a memo distributed to employees Thursday, Cincinnati Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan wrote that the newspaper will lay off up to 100 people in the next few days. The Gannett Co., The Enquirer's parent firm, is bracing for about 1,400 layoffs in its newspaper division before July 9. Buchanan's memo is the first indication about how the cutbacks will affect Cincinnati's only remaining daily newspaper.

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The UK furniture store Habitat capitalized on the Iranian political crisis on their Web site using Twitter keywords to lure potential customers who, instead of shopping, were looking for news on more mundane matters — human rights violations, political unrest, that sort of junk.

Has it really come to this?

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I killed a spider today with astringent. I didn’t know you could kill spiders with astringent until today. But there it was, chilling in my bathroom while I was taking a piss. My first instinct was to douse it with some kind of liquid, and barring the source of liquid currently in my hands, the only other thing within reach was a bottle of astringent sitting on the bathroom sink.

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It’s a trying time for all newspapers, especially daily newspapers and especially The Cincinnati Enquirer.

As more and more readers turn to the Internet for free content and information, advertisers that once relied on print publications instead are flocking to Web sites like Craig’s List. Newspaper companies are left desperately trying to devise a new business model to replace the loss of advertising cash.

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A few weeks ago, I caught this story as it was firing up: Sacramento, Calif., morning radio hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States spent more than a half-hour making disparaging and dehumanizing comments about transgendered children on their May 28 radio show. People were pretty up in arms about it. I was among the hundreds of people who wrote letters to the station manager expressing my unwillingness to tolerate such content.

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Cincinnati's newspaper for the homeless has received major recognition from the International Network of Street Papers, which handed out journalism awards last Thursday at its 14th annual conference in Bergen, Norway. Streetvibes Editor Greg Flannery was on hand to accept the award for Best Feature Story for "We Are Their Slaves," a story he wrote in the June 2008 issue.

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