It's safe to say that no one at The New York Times Co. is happy about the need to compromise the company's greatest asset—the peerless news-gathering operation of its namesake newspaper—in the face of growing costs and shrinking revenues.

But that's not to say there aren't those who regarded last month's announcement of plans to downsize the newsroom by 100 positions as a victory of sorts.

According to a number of current and former New York Times employees, that decision marked the culmination of a period of heightened hostility between the paper's business side, which felt that it had made more than its share of sacrifices in previous round of cost-cutting, and the editorial leadership, which favored doing everything possible to protect the paper's competitiveness.

"It's been an ongoing tension for awhile," says one source close to the business management. "The business side believes they've taken the majority of the hits so far while the newsroom has stayed untouched."

Even the present round of cuts, notes the source, will do no more than restore the newsroom's staffing level to where it was three years ago, around 1,200—and that's not even counting journalists on the digital side.

"They just went too long without significant newsroom cuts," agrees a former editor. "And every time there were cuts, the business side got increasingly perturbed because the news department was so protected."

Of course, a tug-of-war between editorial and business interests is a fixture of every newspaper (and magazine, and TV network, and blog network...)—a point one source in Times management was quick to make.

"This is something that's persisted for years and years now," says the source, who like other employees agreed to speak candidly only if not identified. "Everybody in the newsroom, reporters as well as top management, understands the business environment. This isn't some marital dispute that's led to the baby being put up for adoption."