Doomsday at AJC?

Word is going around that something big will go down at the AJC next week – and nobody expects it to be a good something.

Cox honchos have spent recent weeks prepping the staff to brace for more cost-cutting at the paper. In late June, following a brutal round of layoffs at the Cox-owned Palm Beach Post in which a third(!) of the news staff was let go, AJC Publisher John Mellott issued a memo that offered little comfort:

“The economic factors affecting our business have worsened. The recession, the housing market downturn, as well as soaring newsprint and fuel costs have increased the urgency to reduce expenses. We will do so aggressively and in ways that make most sense for our market, our readers and our advertisers.”

It looks like the shit hits the fan next week. Managers have asked vacationing employees to provide contact information so they can be notified at the same time as the drudges in the newsroom. Everyone is expecting a bombshell to drop next week, but no one we spoke to seems to know whether it’ll be a SCUD missile, a neutron bomb or a Doomsday Machine.