Here we go again.

After getting her marching orders from parent company executives, EnquirerPublisher Margaret Buchanan told newspaper employees that more layoffs would occur, probably this afternoon.

Reliable sources say between 15 and 18 people would be terminated from Greater Cincinnati's only remaining daily newspaper. Overall, about 2 percent of The Gannett Co.'s total workforce will be eliminated in the latest downsizing.

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UPDATE: Laure Quinlivan is suing her former employer, WCPO (Channel 9), in federal court for age and gender discrimination.

ORIGINAL ITEM: The former TV news reporter who headed Channel 9’s I-Team pool of investigators is considering running for Cincinnati City Council, reports say.

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Although it doesn't compare to the wholesale hacking and slashing of staff that occurred in 2009, the latest round of layoffs at The Enquirer includes several positions in the newsroom, which already had seen significant reductions.

At least 16 people on the newspaper's editorial staff were laid off, and another chose to retire, according to reliable sources at the paper.

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It's well-known that The Enquirer has been timid about calling out local corporations on possible misconduct or shady dealings ever since the newspaper paid $14 million to Chiquita in the late 1990s when the produce giant threatened to sue following the publication of a damning special section on its alleged practices in Central and South America.

In the years since, The Enquirer's business coverage has been tepid, and some reporters have alleged they were told to not pursue certain stories after advertisers complained to the publisher.

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Just hours after a Swiss bank froze access today to a legal defense fund established for WikiLeaks provocateur Julian Assange, a group of hackers have shut down the bank's Web site in an escalating "infowar."

A group calling itself Operation Payback took responsibility for the Internet attack on the Swiss bank, PostFinance, via its Twitter account. "We will fire at anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks," the group said in its announcement.

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The Enquirer’s top two sports editors are resigning from the newspaper.

Assistant Managing Editor/Sports Barry Forbis and Deputy Sports Editor Rory Glynn announced their resignations last week in separate emails to fellow staffers.

Forbis, whose resignation becomes effective April 4, is leaving to join Fox Sports as a deputy managing editor in Los Angeles.

In his email, Forbis wrote, “I’ll be working with Jason Whitlock, Jen Engel, Bill Reiter, Greg Couch, Reid Forgrave, Mark Kriegel and A.J. Perez, not to mention a bunch of old friends. It’s a talented group, the job pays pretty well, and, uh, it’s L.A., so I’d have to consider it even if everything were perfect here. It’s not, of course, but you know as well as I do the challenges we have faced and the challenges you will continue to face.”

Forbis also thanked his co-workers, adding, “I want you to know how privileged I feel to have worked with you. I’ve worked with a lot of great sports departments. I don’t know of any who did more with less. You guys are better at just plain getting it done than any group I’ve worked with.”

Glynn announced his departure in an email to the sports staff, which was then forwarded by another person to the entire news staff. The resignation apparently becomes effective Friday.

In his email, Glynn wrote, “Last week, I told Barry … that I’ve decided to resign at the end of the month. Barry knows this is something I’ve been wrestling with for months now; bless his persuasiveness, he’s talked me out of it on a couple of occasions. But it’s time.”

Glynn added, “You all don’t need me to go on about the challenges we all face. I’ll just say the ever-growing demands of this job and the demands of raising four kids are difficult to balance, and if sometimes I’ve focused too much on the first, now I choose to focus on the second."

Online Sports Content Manager Nick Hurm will replace the editors on a temporary basis.

As part of reductions mandated by its owner, The Gannett Co., The Enquirer has laid off about 150 workers during the past two years. Also, employees have had to take five unpaid furloughs during the past three years.

Faced with the choice between job layoffs or a second round of unpaid furloughs for employees, executives at the financially troubled Gannett Co. announced today they were selecting the latter course.

Gannett, the parent firm of The Cincinnati Enquirer, announced a furlough program that will require most non-unionized workers to take at least five days of unpaid leave sometime in April, May or June. The move is expected to save the company about $20 million.

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(** UPDATE FOLLOWS AT END)

With another round of layoffs hitting The Enquirer and other Gannett newspapers nationwide, time will tell if a separate trend at the media company will occur soon in Cincinnati.

Gannett announced last week that it was pulling the plug on the print editions of two faux alt-weeklies, Metromixin Indianapolis and Noise in Lansing, Mich. Both will maintain an online presence, at least for now.

The move follows the cancellation of Metromix's print edition in Nashville last winter and the end of Velocity as a stand-alone paper in Louisville, which is being folded into The Courier-Journal.

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Sometimes you come to work, fire up the ol’ coffee maker and get straight to all the funny websites you like to read before you get started. Other times the boss calls a staff meeting and informs you that you work for a different company now and that new firewalls are going to block your fantasy baseball league during work hours.

Today CityBeat employees were notified that effective immediately we are all part of SouthComm Inc., a Nashville-based publishing company that owns and operates alternative weeklies in six mid-sized Midwestern and Southern markets.

The change is a good thing for a number of reasons. Many of us at CityBeat are already fans of the nearest SouthComm paper — LEO Weekly in Louisville. It is obvious that SouthComm values the creative presentation of local arts, music and culture and the thoughtful news coverage readers have come to expect from CityBeat. SouthComm’s other award-winning publications include Nashville Scene, The Pitch in Kansas City and Creative Loafing papers in Charlotte and Tampa.

We’re actually quite proud that our editorial history and relevance to the community were valued by SouthComm. The company offers access to expanded resources currently not at our disposal, and the SouthComm owners go way back with CityBeat’s founding editor and publisher, making this situation more like “Join our fun team and successful business model,” than “Give us the keys and let us control you.”

While CityBeat will no longer be locally owned, the autonomy SouthComm has offered its other publications and its continued interest in expanding its portfolio is exciting as we continue to build upon our recent staff changes and the success of other entities we operate, including the MidPoint Music Festival and A-Line Magazine.

SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell noted in the official press release CityBeat’s body of work and the potential of the Cincinnati market:

“CityBeat has a long history of covering the local government, music, arts, and culture scene in Cincinnati,” Ferrell said. “We look forward to having them as part of the SouthComm family of publications. We are excited to expand into Cincinnati, which is a very good city for us to build out our model of having multiple niche publications in each market.”

The immediate change will be noticed very little by our general audience, as Dan Bockrath will continue to serve as CityBeat Publisher and we will continue to be locally operated. As part of the acquisition, John Fox, one of the founding owners, will serve as a consultant with SouthComm. Fox was CityBeat's Editor and Co-Publisher from its inception in June 1994 until the end of 2010, when he became Director of CityBeat Events. He leaves day-to-day responsibilities at CityBeat and will be announcing an exciting new venture soon.

Also as part of the acquisition, founding owner Thomas R. Schiff departs as CEO of Lightborne Publishing, the official owner of CityBeat, A-Line Magazine, MidPoint and all of our other entities. We would be extremely remiss in failing to recognize Tom’s unwavering support of CityBeat over the past 18 years — without it the CityBeat enterprise wouldn’t be what it is today.

It’s no secret that Cincinnati presents a challenging media landscape, with the country's largest daily newspaper chain (Gannett, owner of The Cincinnati Enquirer) and largest radio station chain (Clear Channel, owner of multiple AM and FM stations) poking their publicly traded practices into every corner of our town. But their existence presents a rare opportunity to stand out by continuing to offer readers the thoughtful and personal experience they have come to appreciate from CityBeat. If the quality of SouthComm’s other publications is any indication, this acquisition is part of a new and exciting future for us.