Building on the news that layoffs hit the Seattle Weekly newsroom yesterday, parent company Village Voice Media executive associate editor Andy Van De Voorde confirms today that the company has laid off a total of 19 people from its outlets around the United States. "It's painful to lose really good people," he says.

So far there are confirmations of layoffs at SF Weekly, City Pages, and Seattle Weekly.

"In all, we lost 19 journalists yesterday," Van De Voorde continues. "Some of these were staff writers. Some were web editors. Some were specialists such as arts bloggers, who had been added to staffs more recently but who we unfortunately weren't able to retain. This is not a reflection on them, it's a reflection on the economy, which, as Mike Seely has already noted in his comment to you, continues to be brutal, and continues to affect publications and other businesses all around the country." He didn't comment on how many news outlets were affected, only saying, "At a number of papers, one person was laid off; at others, such as Seattle Weekly, it was more."