Today's Observer takes a page from the Post playbook and puts out a hit on Daily News editor-in-chief Martin Dunn. Media writer Michael Calderone tracked down Dean Chang and Mark Mooney, two former news editors who were fired from the tabloid this summer. “I think the Daily News is having a personality crisis,” griped Mooney. “The News’ biggest fault was not embracing what it has been and always should be — a paper for the working class," agreed Chang. The pink paper also trotted out the usual litany of complaints against features editor Orla Healy, who is a usual target of Post attacks ever since she defected from there to join the News last year. Nearly all sources that were quoted blame the paper's longterm circulation decline on very recent staff shakeups — which is a little bit like giving Bush credit for the good economy at the beginning of his first term (you know, backward logic). Shouldn't a slump actually encourage some big changes? We'll admit to a bias on this one — at least one of us used to work at the News — but when the Observer starts taking its cues from the Post, we get a bit worried. We already lost Weeds to the forces of tawdriness — we can't handle another blow.

Rocking Deck at 'Daily News' [NYO]