SPECIAL REPORT: More Newspapers Drop Print Editions -- And Now Online Must Carry the Day

By: Joe Strupp When The Item of Sumter, S.C., dropped its Monday print edition in April, it wasn't a simple matter of posting that day's news on its Web site. Managing Editor Chip Chase also had to move Monday's comics and other feature columns online, too, and publish Monday's obituaries and police reports in the Tuesday print edition ? requiring twice the usual space for those items. Chase had his lone reporter on Sundays post news briefs online and write print stories for the following Tuesday. He also had to realign the Item's enterprise stories and packages so that they no longer begin or end on a Monday.

As if that weren't enough, he also had to create a new Monday feature for the Web in order to draw readers online.

Readers "were not happy" about not having a print edition on Mondays, he says: "Once you get used to having something, you don't want it taken away." But he adds that they've come around, little by little: "Some people have cancelled, but the majority are sticking around. And we are constantly having to adapt."

The Item isn't the only one adapting. A recent Associated Press-compiled list of papers that have dropped at least one print day per week in the last year spans some 100 publications in 32 states, with a dozen in Ohio alone. The cutbacks range from a Monday or Saturday ? which often offered little newshole anyway ? to multiple days and, in some cases, even Sunday.

But one less print edition means less work for the newsroom, right? Hardly. Rather, newsrooms now find themselves having to strike a balance by coming up with attractive content for the Web on non-print publishing days, while also moving some ink-on-paper content around to different days in order to keep subscribers and older readers happy.

"This is a fairly old [readership] community," says Jon Leu, managing editor of the Daily Nonpareil in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which no longer publishes a Monday edition. "There are some people who just do not get on the Internet." So, much of what appears on its Web site late Sunday and Monday ends up in Tuesday's paper.

The Post Register in Idaho Falls, which began dropping Mondays in March, did not foresee the Web demand that would follow. "I think we fumbled the transition pretty dramatically," says Editor and Publisher Roger Plothow. "We could have done a little bit more [online] than we did. We created expectations that we couldn't deliver."

For one thing, Plothow says, news didn't get posted quickly enough to fill the void on non-print publishing days: "We did not have a content-management system where you can create the paper across any platform. It was a struggle." The Post Register staffed Sunday with only one reporter, one news editor and one sports editor. "Our Monday offering was pretty lean," he adds.

The Tahoe Daily Tribune in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., went from a Monday-through-Friday publishing schedule to just Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. To make up the difference, the paper launched a weekly e-mail newsletter that so far has some 1,600 subscribers. Says managing editor Elaine Goodman, "It comes out on Mondays and kind of fills in the gaps. One major motivation was to have bigger papers on the days we do publish."

Shifting in the Motor City
Perhaps the best-known cutback in print days has been at The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, which since March 30 produce daily newspapers but only deliver them to subscribers on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Since the News has no Sunday edition, only the Free Press is delivered that day. "We have evolved to be very aggressive and almost hold nothing out for print," says Free Press Editor/Publisher Paul Anger. "The Web is already 24/7, so nothing has really changed because of the new publishing model. We already do everything for the Web."

Detroit News Editor and Publisher Jon Wolman says, "We put out a vigorous newspaper on all of our days." It has launched a mailbox-delivery option for Monday through Wednesday and on Saturday, at an additional cost (as does the Free Press). Home subscribers automatically receive the e-edition.

Both papers are opting to run enterprise stories and bigger investigative pieces in the Thursday, Friday and Sunday editions more often than before. Editor Anger cited two such cases ? a package on the Detroit pension board wasting money, and a story about auto plants in Mexico ? that were slated for Sunday. "There are also more obituaries on Thursday, Friday and Sunday," he adds. "That might end up being a trend."

Wolman at the News says Thursday has become a choice spot for enterprise at his paper, citing a major story on the de-population of Michigan that ran on April 2, while another investigation into the Japanese auto industry was published a week later, on April 9. "We see it as our best opportunity," he adds.

The News also created what amounts to a second perspective section on Thursdays, titled "Think," that includes a mid-week mix of analysis, columns and editorials similar to Sunday opinion pages. The former Wednesday auto section also has moved to Thursday. "They are sections that are designed to have around the house," says Wolman.

Morning staffing for the Web, especially on non-print days, is also on the rise at both papers. Wolman says some morning reporters and editors who used to be in at 10 a.m. now arrive at 8 or even 7 a.m. He also expects to launch a half-dozen new blogs in the next few months. "There are new features that take advantage of both Web and print," he says, declining to cite specifics.

But what do the staff writers think? "It's a big change," says Detroit News columnist Laura Berman, whose column had run three days in print and is now in only two editions. "I am blogging more, too. All of us are. I think the new frequency of the column requires you to rethink what your role is, to make more impact online."

Also affected is Berman's husband, Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson, whose column now appears only twice a week as well.

Others are filling the gap with expanded online content, electronic editions, and combined issues. "It didn't change the workflow at all," declares John Solomon, editor of The Washington Times. "We staff each day exactly the same way." The Times dropped its Saturday print edition in February, but still produces an electronic edition that day. The e-edition is available free online to all home subscribers, while others pay $39 a year for it exclusively.

Underdog plays for the win
One extreme case is the East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Ariz., which went from publishing seven days a week to Wednesday, Friday and Sunday in January; dropped Saturdays in May; became a free paper and pulled back from some distribution areas; and slashed its staff by some 45 people ? cutting half its payroll.

One of those cut staffers, reporter Paul Giblin, was honored in April when the paper won a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. "I think it would be harder [to win another Pulitzer]," Editor Chris Coppola says of his reduced resources. "But we have reporters who can do that kind of work."

News is posted online every day, but the Tribune's remaining print editions have been cut back in page count and were reduced from three sections to two. Coppola says he must now ensure that big stories posted on Monday or Tuesday get into Wednesday's paper, for those who only read the print edition. He put his copy desk editors on a four-day, 10-hour per day schedule, dropped some comics and moved other print staples such as puzzles, advice columns and daily syndicated features to the Web.

The Tribune also has no more professional sports beats, even though nearby Phoenix is home to four major team sports. That presented a challenge when the Arizona Cardinals had a far better season than anyone had projected. Luckily, although the paper had laid off its Cardinals beat writer, Mike Tulumello, months earlier, he had agreed to stay on through the remainder of the season.

But the Cardinals' success created another dilemma when the team made its unlikely trip to the Super Bowl: The Tribune had no Monday paper in which to publish the numerous stories that would follow, win or lose. So it published 30,000 free copies of a special Super Bowl 18-page tab that went out on Monday. "All the newsracks emptied out way early," Coppola recalls with a laugh. "People were coming into the office for copies."

Doubling up for print devotees
Although one of the biggest challenges for papers that have dropped days is balancing the Web and print, those editors are becoming more convinced that print-devoted readers will stick around even when fewer editions are available and stories get published days after a news event.

In Idaho, Plothow at the Post Register says most of the Monday news that runs online can wait until the Tuesday print edition. "This is not a big breaking-news town," he notes. A bigger task, he adds, was moving the Monday comics into Sunday's paper, where they now run with the Sunday comics.

Such doubling-up on features has become common among papers that have dropped days. "We didn't want puzzle fans and comics fans to go without for a day," says Theresa Hyland, executive editor of the Register-Star in Hudson, N.Y., which dropped its Sunday and Monday editions in March and created a joint weekend edition that comes out on Saturdays. "We have four pages of comics and puzzles now in the Tuesday edition," she adds.

When The Frederick (Md.) News-Post suspended its Monday edition on April 6, it cut its Sunday staffing from at least 10 down to five, with no Sunday sports staff. But many Sunday and Monday news events are still reported in Tuesday's edition, for which pages are added to accommodate the extra copy. "There are still events we have to cover on Sunday, so we have one reporter and one photographer" on duty, says Managing Editor Terry Headlee. The other three are editors and non-reporting staff.

But when news events happen, the lack of a Monday paper can still create frustration, even with 24-hour Web access. Headlee cites the April 18 murder/ suicide in nearby Middletown, Md., in which a distraught father killed his wife and three children. Although the bodies were found on a Saturday and coverage made the Sunday paper, the lack of a Monday edition curtailed the story's reach. "It was a national story that continued for days, and on the second day, we didn't publish," he recalls. "We had to update our Web and pick it up [in print] Tuesday."

Hyland at the Register-Star faces similar print shuffling and planning. If a big event is slated for a Sunday or Monday, her strategy usually is to do a bigger preview than follow-up. "If there is a big event we still cover it, but it's more important to say it is happening than 'Hey, you missed it,'" she says.

At The Chronicle of St. Charles, Ill., which dropped its Sunday and Monday editions and created a combined Saturday-Sunday paper, much of the weekend news goes into a two-page Tuesday section titled "In Review." Editor Joe Grace says his paper's daily news coverage is the same, with online the top priority. But he admits many Web items of the weekend must be rewritten and updated for Tuesday's edition.

The Wilmington (Ohio) News Journal, which didn't publish on Sundays to begin with, must include several days of news on Tuesday now that it no longer publishes on Mondays. Editor Dan Liggett covered some of the loss by moving the paper's Sunday free tab to Mondays, and including weekend comics, TV listings and other such features ? but no breaking news.

"We try to cover Saturday through Monday on Tuesday," Liggett says. "But we don't staff Sunday night so we can staff more the rest of the week. There is more breaking news that goes up on Monday." Obituaries, meanwhile, also hit the Web on Monday, and then appear in print on Tuesday. "Sometimes we have to jump obituaries to another page just to fit them," he adds.

Friday night (high)lights
For those dropping the Saturday paper, the impact is felt more in local sports, in which games are often played on Friday nights. At The Courier in Waterloo, Iowa, which ended its Saturday edition in February, "We revamped the Saturday Web site and topped it with sports just for that day," says Editor Nancy Newhoff. "We flipped it." Friday's news staffers stay later so they can get news on the Web that can't wait for Sunday. "We also add it into the Sunday paper with a Friday news page and the fresher stuff in front," she notes.

The Courier also moved several popular Saturday features to other days in print, Newhoff says, after readers lobbied for them once word of the Saturday cut got out. A parenting column was moved to Wednesday, and a frugal-living column also found a new home on Friday. "You've got two different audiences," she stresses. "A lot of people are not going online on the weekends, and you have people who check the Web often."

That Saturday cut was felt fairly quickly on Fri., April 3, when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, drawing national coverage.

Fewer days better than none
The Chronicle's Joe Grace and nearly all of the editors who bemoan the difficulties of having one or more fewer print days say that given the choice, they'd rather cut print editions than staff. "With no staff reductions," says Grace, at least "you are looking at the same number of stories, but with a different [print] frequency."

Editor Coppola at the East Valley Tribune in Arizona concurs, adding that if his paper had not cut back print days and shed staff, it wouldn't be around to do anything: "With the staff reductions, we took a hard look at our priorities to make sure we're still able to be a local paper."

Several small groups of dailies, like the Swift Communications daily papers in the Lake Tahoe area of California and Nevada, ended up sharing more content after they went from Tuesday-through-Saturday print schedules to Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

Another small chain, the Caulkins Media Group of Levittown, Pa., includes three papers ? The Intelligencer of Doylestown, Pa.; the Bucks County Courier Times of Levittown; and the Burlington County Times of Willingboro, N.J. ? all of which dropped Saturday editions in January. Executive Editor Pat Walker, who oversees all three papers, says the change really affected coverage of Friday news: "Saturday was one of our newsiest [editions], one of the strongest papers of the week. Things wrap up and resolve in court on Fridays, there's high school sports coverage, and other things. Jury verdicts come in on Friday, and that has been something we consistently scratch our heads about."

With a combined 135 news people at the three papers, Walker says staffing is plentiful. But with fewer print days, much of that content ends up online instead.

"We retool [some Friday news] for the Sunday paper," she says, knowing full well that some people still won't check out the Web coverage, especially on weekends. "It would have been a disaster not to put [Friday news] in the Sunday paper," she adds. "A lot of our readers said they will wait until Sunday to read it."

But Walker admits there is still a loss on Saturday, even with Web coverage, letters, editorials and some comics. Asked if she believes more days could be cut, she says, "I hope not. I think that makes it very difficult to maintain the consistency with your readers. We still have a lot of people plunking down their money for print."

This feature first appeared in E&P's June issue.