The Daily News, once a strong local media presence in Santa Clarita, will face extensive newsroom cuts starting tomorrow, reports a staffer who often blogs about the newspaper.

Brent Hopkins at “The Nut Graph” blog says that “Corporate will cut 22 jobs in Editorial by the end of the week, bringing us down to 100 people in the newsroom. They’ll be spread between management and rank-and-file.” The Daily News primarily covers news, sports, features, and entertainment in the San Fernando Valley, but also has some staff who write occasionally on Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley news.

Hopkins says Daily News staff and even the paper’s editor, Ron Kaye, were near tears during the announcement, which was made in the newsroom.

When he [Ron Kaye] broke down in the middle of his speech, it was one of the rawest, most genuine moments of emotion I’ve seen in this newsroom in my career. While I’m sure he’s wrecked his health over this and taken on a godawful amount of stress, I’m glad that if we had to hear this from someone, it came from a true leader with character.

It’s not clear who will be cut or which facility will face more cuts; the Daily News has newsrooms in both its Woodland Hills office and its Santa Clarita office, which serves as the paper’s printing facility.

However, Hopkins says layoffs “will be determined by job, length of service and performance.”

Hopkins uses the term “editorial” which would include not just news writers, but photographers, copy editors, sports reporters and even management.

The paper currently employs at least two journalists who report on Santa Clarita news. One is veteran reporter and Santa Clarita editor Pat Aidem. The other is Jerry Berrios, a reporter who came to the Daily News just last year after a brief stint at The Signal. Before that, Berrios wrote for a Miami paper.

For years, Santa Clarita readers of the Daily News could expect at least three or four local news stories in a separate Santa Clarita wrap. That all changed last summer when the paper’s management eliminated the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley wraps to cut costs and assigned Santa Clarita reporters to other beats.

Carol Rock was one reporter at the Daily News who left after the last round of cuts and reassignments. She joined KHTS News last fall. Two others, Alex Dobuzinskis and Connie Llanos, covered San Fernando Valley news after the change.

Though the Daily News has eliminated much of its coverage of Santa Clarita news, the paper has expanded its online presence and often includes audio and video stories alongside written stories.

Hopkins says staff at the Daily News are circulating a letter and asking the paper’s senior management and publisher to “request that he meet with the newsroom to share the plan going forward. If he’s going to slash our jobs, the least he can do is tell us his plan to get us out of this mess.”

The Daily News is owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group. It’s one of several MediaNews Group papers in the Los Angeles area and California.

Hopkins says that when Kaye announced the cuts, it was “the worst day I’ve ever seen here at the paper,” though he said he’s sure Friday will be worse. He says it may take the Daily News’ readers awhile to realize how much the cuts have affected the newspaper, but that “in a year, maybe two, maybe more, they’ll realize there’s a gaping hole left behind that can never be filled in.”

That’s certainly true in Santa Clarita’s case.

Best of luck