Bloomberg News laid off approximately fifty employees yesterday, about 2% of the organization, in addition to the ten people from their TV department cut last week. According to an email from Matt Winkler, editor in chief, they plan to “scale back arts coverage” and consolidate their projects team in Washington.

MobyLives was especially sorry to hear Laurie Muchnick, books editor and president of the National Book Critics Circle, must move on. On Twitter, she wrote, “Not sure how to put this so here goes: Bloomberg is cutting arts coverage, including books, so today was my last day there.”

Talking Biz News ran a partial list of employees laid off yesterday, including Rich Jaroslovsky, Elliot Blair Smith, and Charles R. Babcock.

The arts, already slim, seem to be the first to go completely this year when newspapers make cuts. The New York Daily News cut its art section in May. The Chicago Sun-Times did away with its books section in June. (Not to mention the Sun-Times photographers.) The Independent laid off all of its art critics at the end of July.