Russell Smith loves the texture of a newspaper in the morning, so it pains him that the end of the newspaper era appears to be looming.

The CBC will cut a total of 80 news jobs across its English language services, part of 393 to be chopped. Those are part of 800 jobs to be chopped across the entire corporation.

I got to go to the budget lockup and cover the budget for ctvtoronto.ca. Here's what I came up with (the video reports of my CTV Toronto colleagues Paul Bliss and John Musselman, CTV News' John Vennavally-Rao and BNN's Amanda Lang are attached, along with some raw vid):

Ontario posting $57 billion in deficits over 7 years (main)

Duncan defends budget as 'serious undertaking' (political reaction)

GTA to see tax credits, funding for infrastructure (Toronto-centric)

In the area of commentary, here's the Globe and Mail's Adam Radwanski:

McGuinty finds (Flaherty's) religion

And here's the Toronto Star's Jim Coyle:

McGuinty will thrive or die on this budget

If someone comes across some solid citizen commentary that does more than just regurgitate the talking points of whichever party they happen to support, I'd love to read them. Please shoot me a link.

A final cheery thought for tonight. Excerpts from John Ibbitson's column on whether the Obama administration's economic policies could make the current crisis worse.