NJ’s Largest Paper, Star-Ledger, Cuts 40 News Jobs

The Star-Ledger (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) – New Jersey’s largest newspaper is cutting about 170 jobs, including 25 percent of its newsroom positions, as it moves to consolidate operations and cut costs.

The Star-Ledger reported Thursday on NJ.com that the cuts will mean the loss of 40 of the 156 newsroom staffers at the paper.

Other journalists at the newspaper are being offered jobs at NJ Advance Media, a new company being created by parent company Advance Publications to provide content, advertising and marketing services to all of its papers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20140403_ap_bcb3f7ff38f04519b9d0130680554985.html#yfmrwV6huUd6q3Sx.99

Closing Of Newark Star-Ledger Possible

The Star-Ledger (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NEWARK – Owners of the Star-Ledger plan to close New Jersey’s largest newspaper by year’s end if production unions don’t make concessions in contract negotiations, the publisher said Wednesday.

In a letter to staff, publisher Richard Vezza said the company felt “pushed into a corner” by the unions, whose contracts expire in July.  Vezza said they have until Sept. 27 to make compromises or else the paper will shut down.

“This is not a threat.  This is reality,” Vezza said in an interview.

The paper’s website, www.nj.com, is owned by a separate company and will continue to publish “no matter what happens with the Ledger,” Vezza said.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20130627_Closing_of_Star-_Ledger_possible.html#bdzrJUzhQ0AOWDGl.99

Harrisburg Newspaper To Publish 3 Days A Week

Editor’s note:  According to Wikipedia, in 2011 The Patriot-News averaged over 492,000 readers per week between their print edition and Pennlive.com.  The newspaper was ranked in the top 100 in daily/Sunday circulation (United States) in 2005.

HARRISBURG, PA — The daily newspaper in Pennsylvania’s capital city is switching to a three-days-a-week publication schedule in January, in what it calls an adaptation to the changing world.

John Kirkpatrick, publisher of The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, announced the changes Tuesday in an email to friends of the newspaper.

The email didn’t say which days the paper will be published. It says the change will be accompanied by an expansion of the paper’s around-the-clock news coverage online.

“We are not making this move lightly,” said Kirkpatrick. “We understand how important the daily paper is to a large number of people in our region. However, this is a major step to make sure we are leading, not trailing, in the world of innovation and solutions.”

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-patriot-news-20120828,0,7285933.story

Easton Newspaper’s Owner Losing Faith In Print?

English: The Express-Times building in Easton, Pennsylvania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The New Orleans Times-Picayune‘s planned move to a three-day-a-week newspaper could signal that its sister papers in the Lehigh Valley and region — the Easton Express-Times, Harrisburg Patriot-News and Newark Star-Ledger — will eventually do the same, industry analysts say.

Advance Publications, which owns the Times-Picayune, has not announced plans to scale back at its three publications in this region, but one expert said conversations about taking that step already are happening at a time when newspapers across the country continue to grapple with declining advertising revenue and print sales.

“I think it will happen,” said former Knight Ridder executive Ken Doctor, who writes the Newsonomics blog. “The question is time. I know there are discussions within [Advance Publications] about how quickly to proceed with its other newspapers. I don’t know if a timeline is set, but there have been discussions on how and when to do this.”

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-advance-publications-cuts-20120525,0,338158.story

New Orleans Newspaper Cuts Print Edition To Three Days A Week

A true-color satellite image of New Orleans taken on NASA’s Landsat 7 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NEW ORLEANS, La.  (Reuters) – The 175-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper will reduce the number of days it publishes a print edition to three a week, making the Louisiana city the largest in the United States without a daily newspaper.

Advance Publications, which owns the Times-Picayune, said on Thursday it made the change because of the upheaval in the newspaper industry and the necessity to focus on its digital publications.

The company said three of its newspapers in Alabama – the Huntsville Times, Mobile Press-Register and Birmingham News – would also cut back their print editions to three days a week.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/sns-rt-us-media-neworleans-newspaperbre84o03e-20120524,0,1798086.story