Nice timing - the firings come just three days after Copley's sale of the SD paper to private equity firm Platinum Equity was completed. Almost 200 positions will be eliminated, but no word on the total number of layoffs or how many are in the newsroom. Copley went through several rounds of buyouts and layoffs in recent years, but the assumption was that more blood would be shed once the new owner took over. Here's the U-T story

Meanwhile, the SF Chronicle began laying off 30 folks in editorial this afternoon, part of an earlier agreement that the paper reached with the Media Guild. Hearst had threatened to shut down the Chronicle without major concessions from the unions. The company says it's been losing $50 million or more annually (sources tell the SF Business Times that the numbers are now even worse).