However it appears that some in the newsroom can’t wait any longer for word from the executive suite.

They’ve turned to a higher authority for help.

A newsroom source reports that someone has left a large life-size replica of a rooster on a counter in the fifth floor newsroom that’s visible to all who enter from a bank of elevators. My source says from 20 feet away the bird looks very real.

A sign attached to the rooster reads: “Brought in by a Santeria priest (the real deal from Hialeah) to help save our jobs. Leave an offering.”

As of 5pm, the counter on which the 20-inch tall colorful rooster stands was littered with an assortment of tributes including coins of all denominations, two wrapped cigars, a half-smoked hand-rolled cigar from Little Havana, a tiny plastic doll with a sign that says: “Feed the niños,” a Virgin de Guadalupe candle and what appears to be a plastic “dashboard Jesus.”

There’s no humor like newsroom gallows humor.

McClatchy vice president of operations Frank Whittaker, who oversees 10 daily newspapers in California, Florida and the Midwest, was seen coming back from a breakfast meeting this morning with top Herald executives according to my sources.

Some of the Herald execs attending the breakfast meeting with Whittaker were publisher David Landsberg, executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal, Elissa Vanaver, VP/Human Resources and assistant to the publisher, Rick Hirsch, Managing Editor/Multimedia & Special Projects and Liza Gross, Managing Editor/Presentation & Operations.

But late Wednesday afternoon no word was forthcoming from the executive suite.

For weeks rumors have been circulating at the paper of personnel cuts of as much as 15%.

My sources say the mood in the newsroom is very tense.

People are “freaking out,” said one source adding, “it’s a very tense time. They are dealing with people’s lives. These are people who have worked their hearts out for this paper. And if it’s not this round maybe next round.”

While no one knows yet where the cuts will come from some rumors circulating say the sports department will be spared major cuts.

But one source said, “they’ve cut all the fat and now they’re starting to cut into the muscle. The newspaper business is changing faster than gas prices.”

We search night and day for the important stories. Fluff, trivia and superficiality might have a place elsewhere on the Internet but you’ll find none of that at Random Pixels.

So tonight as we were perusing the New York Times website we happened upon a seemingly innocuous item from France. It appeared to document the abrupt replacement of an older male French TV anchor named Patrick Poivre d’Arvor by a younger one named Laurence Ferrari on France’s most-watched evening news program

It seemed to us like a strange way to characterize the younger anchor. Oddly, there was no mention of Laurence’s journalism credentials.

We dug deeper and did a Google image search.

And suddenly it all became crystal clear!That’s Patrick on the left and Laurence on the right. Got it?

This all might seem silly to you but today in France this was major front page news.

Makes sense to us!

I have no idea what he’s going to say but whatever it is it probably won’t be well received by an already demoralized staff.

Sources also tell me that more buyoffs are in the works but they’re not ruling out layoffs either.

The number that keeps coming up is “15,” as in a 15% overall cut of the workforce at the Herald. But one source tells me there isn’t anyone left now to produce a decent paper.

What a lot of people don’t know about Joan is that a good number of the people she writes about are her personal friends. And in journalism, that’s supposed to be a no-no!

This morning was no exception.

Joanie penned a 342 word item about her friend and former Herald executive Pat San Pedro who’s been diagnosed with breast cancer. Breast cancer is no picnic; my sister was diagnosed with it years ago and today is doing just fine.

The problem is that outside of the Herald no one in Miami really knows who Pat San Pedro is. If Joan wanted to let people know about Pat’s plight she could have just sent an e-mail to everyone in the newsroom.

Why Joan saw this as compelling reading for the Herald’s 300,000+ Sunday readers is beyond me. I’m guessing that there are hundreds if not thousands of South Florida women battling breast cancer. But they don’t get in Joan’s column because they’re not her friends.

I’m also guessing if you stopped 10 people on the street and asked them who Pat San Pedro is, about 10 of them would say “no.”

The real problem here is that Joan uses her column to write about her friends ad nauseam.

Actually Pat does have one other claim to fame.

In 2005, she and five of her female friends who called themselves the “Miami Bombshells,” wrote a book called “Dish & Tell: Life, Love, and Secrets.” The book was so bad it sold less than 5,000 copies.

New Times printed an excellent piece about the book and how the Herald shamelessly promoted and serialized it under the leadership of “Teflon Tom” Fiedler.

Pat and another of the book’s author’s were former Herald execs.

Newsroom staffers were incensed at the time at what they saw as preferential treatment given the book written by “The Bombshells.” So incensed that they stormed Tom’s office demanding an explanation as to why the Herald was promoting a book that bore a stronger resemblance to garbage than it did literature.

Tom later admitted to New Times that the book was “pretty lousy.”

But that didn’t stop Joan from mentioning the book twice in her piece this morning. That’s two mentions of a book that was a flop and that has an Amazon.com sales rank of about 754,000!

Memo to Joan: Can we have a moratorium on items about your friends? I’d say that it starts now and continues until you retire!

Rumors of impending layoffs at the Miami Herald have been circulating for weeks producing much the same effect on the psyche of those who work there as an approaching category 5 storm in the Caribbean; anxiety, fear, apprehension and in some cases panic.

Those in the know say that the word of firings could come as early as the first part of the week.

Chuck Strouse of Miami New Times wrote yesterday that McClatchy wants a reduction of 10 to 15% of the Herald’s workforce. How many newsroom employees will be affected remains to be seen.

My sources tell me that McClatchy is seeking a 10 to 15% reduction at all of their papers.

As I’ve written before, this is the stark reality for the foreseeable future of newspapers.

Shrinking revenues and declining circulation bases are just two of the reasons for newspapers’ woes.

How long will the Herald, and newspapers in general, be able to survive under these conditions? Experts disagree.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer gives all print media 10 years.

Russ Stanton, editor of the LA Times is more optimistic and says the print edition of his paper will be around for another 35 years.

As far as the Herald’s concerned, I’m no expert, but with their circulation declining in the range of 10% every six months, I’d be very surprised if the print edition will still be viable in five years.

Other papers are losing circulation but not nearly as drastic as those numbers. Yet.

Who’s to blame for the predicament that newspapers are in?

The Internet is one reason. It’s just quicker and more practical to get news online these days.

And news consumers’ needs and tastes have changed. However, except for updated graphics and snappier layouts, the content newspapers offer today is essentially the same as it was almost 45 years ago when this copy of the Herald was printed.
The Internet is also partly responsible for newspapers’ loss of advertising revenue.

Want to place a classified ad in the paper? It’ll cost you. Want to place an ad on a site like Craigslist? No problem and no charge!

Veteran Miami journalist Michael Putney tried to wrap his brain around the problem this week in his Herald column.

Michael’s main point was that we can’t afford to lose newspapers; we need newspapers to keep an eye on politicians and report on government waste and misdeeds.

(This morning’s report on waste and mismangement within Miami-Dade’s Transit System is an example of what happens when the Herald gets it right.)

He also pointed out that newspapers have shot themselves in the foot by giving away content online which he says is “one reason why Herald and Sun-Sentinel circulation are down. Why pay for something you can get free?”

Excellent points to be sure, but he didn’t address why the Herald in particular is losing subscribers in numbers far higher than other newspapers. I have my own thoughts on this that I’ll share at another time.

In an e-mail to me Michael expanded a bit on some of his points:

“Hey [Bill]- Yes, you’re right that newspapers have largely done themselves in by failing to understand the zeitgeist of the digital revolution. They made so much money for so long doing it the same way they just couldn’t shake themselves out of their old habits. Now, the marketplace and the Internet have done it for them. Okay, dawg, that’s it. MP”

So perhaps with the news that’s sure to come next week, many at the Herald will finally begin to “shake themselves out of their old habits.”