Yahoo group for LAT refugees grows

The closed Yahoo group exLATers, for former Los Angeles Times journalists, started after the big layoffs in 2008 as a place for collegues to learn about COBRA benefits, compares notes and talk about job prospects. After this week's layoffs, the group has grown to 153 members. "A larger group of journalists, I suspect, than the staffs of most newspapers these days," says founder Scott Martelle, who's now an author and freelancer. Group members these days get a weekly email roundup of job postings from Brett Levy, who with Martelle and some other members started The Journalism Shop.