by: Michael Depp | NetNewsCheck

Rumbling under the maelstrom around this spring’s news that New Orleans would be the first major American city to lose its daily paper was a second storm: Three Alabama cities would also take a similar hit in September.

The toll would be 400 jobs, and the three papers, the Birmingham News, the Mobile Press-Register and the Huntsville Times, would scale back to three days of print a week, shifting over to a digital focus with a revamped, statewide Web platform via owner Advance Publications.