Detroit Newspapers Cutting Jobs; Home Delivery Only 3 Days

 

DETROIT, MI (December 16, 2008) – Employees of The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press learned after a union meeting this morning that up to 9 percent of their workforce will be cut, the newsrooms will shift their emphasis from the printed paper to the online product, and the two newspapers will drop to only a few days of home delivery.

The Free Press will be delivered to homes on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday and the News will be delivered only on Thursdays and Fridays. The printed papers will still be available for purchasing seven days a week at stores, newsstands, and coin boxes, and around-the-clock online.

The home delivery changes are expected to start in March.

The two newspapers are published by the Detroit Media Partnership in a joint operating agreement that's almost 20 years old. The Free Press is owned by Gannett Co., who last month instituted vast layoffs across Gannett, and the News is owned by William Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group.

"Advertising in this economy is down and costs are up. We can't live in the past," DMP's CEO Dave Hunke said today.

After the changes, Free Press and News subscribers will have daily access to electronic versions of the newspapers, "exact copies" of each day's printed product, DMP said today.

The Detroit Newspaper Guild represents 350 newsroom employees at both papers. A guild representative said DMP told union leaders that their "current business model is unsustainable," but that at the same time owners felt the need to maintain two separate newspapers.

Today's announcement came from DMP's Hunke, who is also publisher of the Free Press; Paul Anger, editor and vice president of the Free Press; and Jonathan Wolman, editor and publisher of the News.

"We need to shift resources to the digital side of our business, which readers and advertisers clearly are telling us is our future,” Hunke said.

“We worked with IDEO, a global design company consistently ranked among the most innovative companies in the world, to understand how the people in metro Detroit use media,” Anger said.

"Using their approach, which is grounded in understanding human needs, behaviors and social context, helped us connect with current media consumption trends. This research informed an initial series of prototypes to define new ways to provide value to Detroit area customers. Our newsroom is looking forward to engaging our readers and continuing to innovate and evolve our offerings."

In a story published today in the Free Press, Hunke said, "“IDEO challenged some of the assumptions the media industry makes about how people want and desire news. We spoke to and observed a broad spectrum of people in their homes, at their places of work, and in everyday settings and this guided the development of new offerings.”

On Sundays the Free Press is the sixth-largest Sunday paper in the nation, with a circulation of 605,000. The News does not publish a Sunday paper. During the week the Free Press ranks 20th (298,243 circulation), the News ranks 49th (188,000 circulation).

As the nation's newspapers recoil from several consecutive years of advertising revenue declines, which have turned critical in recent months, and the credit crunch, newspapers in the Detroit region have been hit exceptionally hard by the additional financial crisis of America's auto manufacturing industry, which is located primarily in the Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana regions, along with a housing slump and high unemployment.

 

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