I’ve been thinking about this for several months now, through the lens of my own layoff and the much bigger picture of the print journalism world’s free-fall — and the daily revelations of more big cuts here, there, everywhere.

At what point should a newspaper editor say, “I’m not going to be the guy who guts this newsroom. I quit.”

I have come up for a formula for this. If you leave too early, you’re a bit of a sissy. If you stay too late, you’re a heartless bastard.

The trick is getting it just right. And it might also depend on the size and history of the journalism entity you lead.

My system:

1. Every editor should stick out one round of layoffs. Every one.

In a lot of cases, ambitious people have just gotten that big promotion. For the first time, they’re running a newsroom. It’s a heady experience. And I don’t think we can expect someone to chuck that away at the first sign of trouble. Even if it’s part of a pattern at that paper. You’ve got to give the first-time hacker/slasher one round.

Say you’re that first-time layer-offer. You’ve been watching things turn sour, or you’ve come to the “party” knowing full well that times are tough, and when you interviewed with the publisher or whatever corporate suits were involved, it was strongly intimated (and maybe verbalized) that within a few weeks of your accession you would have to oversee a round of cuts.

I’ll even give you a round of serious cuts here. That’s part of serious leadership. Making some tough decisions.

Thing is, you’ve been studying the organization, and you believe you know where the unproductive people are, the coasters, the ones whose responsibilities duplicate someone else’s. (At least in your eyes.) You believe you can make the cuts you were asked to make and the institution will be OK. You feel badly about at least some of it (at least, I hope you do), but as a professional … you’re OK with it, and honestly don’t believe if will hurt the product.

An example of someone who failed this test: Jay Harris, editor of the San Jose Mercury News. He was asked to make cuts in his newsroom at a time (2001) when the Merc clearly was fat and overstaffed, and rather than get down to business, he walked. I don’t know the guy; I’m just saying that, looking back, the Merc had all sorts of room for a fair man to make cuts. I mean, anybody still at the Merc would love-love-love to have back the newspaper that Jay Harris refused to countenance.

2. An editor is asked to make a second round of cuts. Sooner than expected. (All second rounds come sooner than expected, these days.) This is a gray area.

Every editor knows about that first round. It’s the second … The people you didn’t like (professionally, even personally) are gone. Now you are being asked to change the basic organizational structure of the paper, asked to dump valuable staffers, and you can’t come up with a list, off the top of your head, that gets to the layoff numbers your bosses want.

Some editors quit right here. John Carroll and Dean Baquet of the L.A. Times come to mind. They were OK with the early trimming. They thought they were close to the publisher, etc., and needed to show some managerial decision-making Then they balked as the process got more dire.

Given, it’s easier to quit when you’re working at a major metro, because you almost certainly have the contacts and background to land some other nice job. So it’s not as if you’re destroying your earning power. It’s easier to stand on principle when you’ve got a job at the New York Times (that would be Baquet) in your pocket.

So give the guys at smaller papers a little more rope here, because they can’t instantly be lecturers at some university or jump to another paper with little or no damage to their earning power.

So you can go either way here, and I probably won’t condemn you for being soft or an asshole.

3. You are hanging around for wave after wave of cuts. You show no apparent remorse. If you care, no one can tell. The newspaper that existed when you showed up no longer is recognizable. You are overseeing the destruction of a journalism entity.

This makes you a heartless bastard. And some of you know who you are.

When the newsroom you took over … has lost half its employees … when you wield an ax dutifully (and perhaps even cheerfully), you should leave. Immediately. Or risk losing whatever shred of respect you have left, and prove without doubt you are, yes, a soulless drone.

I will name a few names here. Those of you who have watched other newspapers gutted as one individual stays in charge … fill in your own names.

Rich Archbold of the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Steve Lambert of the San Bernardino Sun/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. They ran real newspapers, only a few years ago. Now they sit atop the smoking ruins, with blood on their hands. Willing executioners. Ready to assemble a firing squad whenever asked.

I fear the L.A. Times may have an editor like this in place. Russ Stanton had a curious and unexpected rise to the editor’s chair, and I fear he may be the sort of man who will cut and cut and cut … as long as he keeps that title. He has been through one round of buyouts (layoffs by another name) … and now there is word of another on the near horizon, and I don’t see this guy resigning on principle.

Editors of this type should have reached a point months, years ago when they looked at themselves in the mirror and said, “I can’t do this anymore.” And they should have walked into the publisher’s office and said, “I need to move, or I need to leave.”

But they have not, because there they are, sitting in their empty newsrooms.

Editors of this sort apparently have no trouble with the idea that they will be remembered only as the “guy who destroyed the newspaper.” Even if they take perverse pleasure in whittling their newsrooms down to nothing. (And I’m beginning to wonder if some of them see this as a form of sport.)

The only mitigating circumstance here? Desperate attachment to a paycheck. Like, say, you’ve been divorced a time or three and have a boatload of child-support and alimony. Maybe. Maybe that’s an excuse. Up to a point.

But still … when you saw the paper going down the drain, had been part of it for years now, knew in your heart it wasn’t going to turn around, yet you cut and cut and cut … If that’s you, you should have moved heaven and earth to get out. You must leave. Hey, dude! You’re not a journalist anymore; you’re a mortician.

This isn’t the high seas. There is nothing noble about going down with your ship. Not when you are taking the whole crew down with you. Let someone else take a turn at the wheel. Maybe they can save a tiny bit of what you cannot. Get out. Do yourself and everyone else a favor. And perhaps be remembered for having some standards you would not sink below. Not to mention a shred of decency.

Perhaps never before in journalism history have so many editors faced these issues at the same time. At least, I like to think most of them at least realize it’s an issue, and have identified the place from which they will retreat no further.