Did some checking with some friends, and the real reason for all these titles is actually more sinister than you even want to think: A huge number of them are non-guild positions held by former guild employees. So what the Tribune did here was essentially desimate the union. This was as much about destroying organized labor as it was title masturbation. They let it be known that the people at the bottom rungs would be laid off if they didn't show interest in these new positions. When most of the young people took them, it allowed the Tribune to slash deeper into the seniority lists. So older people they couldn't have gotten to otherwise got axed, and the guild got signifficantly smaller all under the ruse of "reorganization." The claim may have been that ad revenue was down so much they needed to trim staff just to survive, but the added bonus will be the eventual desimation of the union.
Embarrassing.