The New Orleans Times-Picayune will soon cease to be a daily newspaper. The paper announced yesterday that it was moving to a three-times weekly schedule with greater emphasis on delivering the news at greater frequency through it’s website.
With a reduced printing schedule starting in the fall, Amoss said, plans call for the Wednesday, Friday and Sunday editions of The Times-Picayune to be in many ways more robust than each of the daily newspapers is currently. They will contain a richer and deeper news, sports and entertainment report, as well as a full week’s worth of features such as society coverage, puzzles and comics.
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Mathews said details of the new digitally focused company are still being worked out, but the transition will be difficult. While many employees will have the opportunity to grow with the new organization, Mathews said, the need to reallocate resources to accelerate the digital growth of NOLA Media Group will result in a reduction in the size of the workforce.
Also, dailies in Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile, Alabama are affected in the Fall.
The Birmingham News said this about features/comics…
The Wednesday, Friday and Sunday newspapers will be enhanced to add features and be more robust than the papers? current offerings, Martin said. The three newspapers will include more sports and entertainment coverage, and will include a full week?s worth of puzzles and comics in the three days of publication. The three newspapers also plan to expand their reporting resources to provide more focus on local news.
Does this mean we won’t see much of a newspaper in a major city this Fall for people in New Orleans and 3 Alabama cities?
At least for the other four days of the week. Yes.
But, the digital/replica version will be online.
Looks like 3 days of Times Picayune comics instead of 7 days…
This same reduced print schedule happened to a group of Michigan newspapers earlier this year (Grand Rapids Press, Kalamazoo Gazette, Flint Journal, and some others). Same owner (Advance Publications) as these papers in New Orleans and Alabama. As far as syndicated cartoon features go, it was a win — they added about 14 strips and expanded the comics sections. Most of the papers print on a 7 day schedule for newsstands and deliver 3 days. The delivered papers on Tuesday and Thursday have 3 days worth of comics (and puzzles, etc.). Sunday has the Sunday comics.
It takes a bit of getting used to. And many good people lost their jobs. But it beats the alternative of no newspapers at all.