The Lens | Media of Birmingham
One year ago today, spurred by a New York Times story, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune announced it would reduce staff and print frequency. Photographer Bevil Knapp took a look last June at how New Orleanians consumed the print paper; on Friday The Lens published another essay showing the subjects a year later.

Wilbert "Mr. Chill" Wilson cuts Gail Brooks' hair in 2012. (Photo by Bevil Knapp)

Wilson with fellow barber Carson Gauthreaux Jr. a year later (Photo by Bevil Knapp)

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The Express-Times | The Morning Call
The Advance-owned (Easton, Pa.) Express-Times will print to Staten Island beginning in June, the paper reported Wednesday -- "a move that will result in 12 full-time and 26 part-time job losses."

President and Publisher Lou Stancampiano tells the paper there are no plans to reduce print frequency at The Express-Times. The Staten Island press is four-color and "will have better reproduction and full color on virtually every page," Stancampiano said.

Morning Call reporter Sam Kennedy writes that this is the paper's second incidence of job cuts in 2013: "About 20 jobs in several departments were eliminated in January, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the payroll's 234 full- and part-time workers."

The Express-Times notes "The Express-Times and its predecessor newspapers have operated in Easton since 1855."

A daily newspaper has been printed in Easton since then, except for a yearlong period during the Civil War when the paper's operators fought in the Union Army.

The Plain Dealer | Save The Plain Dealer | Cleveland Magazine
The Cleveland Plain Dealer will deliver papers only three times per week, but it will print every day, the paper announced Thursday. The change will come this summer.

The company will also reorganize as the Northeast Ohio Media Group, which will handle "advertising sales and marketing for The Plain Dealer, Cleveland.com and Sun newspapers," the announcement says. "And, Northeast Ohio Media Group will provide content for all print and digital products."

Plain Dealer science writer John Mangels described the changes as "bittersweet" in a phone call with Poynter. "It’s better than what we had expected," he said. In a newsroom meeting announcing the changes, Mangels said, management said planned layoffs would be delayed until late summer.

Plain Dealer staffers launched a campaign this past November they hoped woud ward off a move to three-day-a-week printing, which the paper's owner, Advance, has instituted at its papers in Alabama, New Orleans and Harrisburg, Pa. (more...)

Reuters | AllThingsD | The Big Lead
Sporting News is now part of a joint venture with the British company Perform, Reuters reports. The venerable sports publication went digital-only last year and currently runs its website in partnership with AOL.

"The idea is to create a bigger U.S. presence for Perform, which already distributes sports highlights clips to some U.S. newspapers and other publications," Peter Kafka writes in AllThingsD.

Advance owns Sporting News through its American City Business Journals unit, which is contributing $4.2 million to the new joint venture, Reuters says. Perform's kicking in $1.4 million; it "will own 65 percent of the venture and has the right to buy out ACBJ's 35 percent share for $65 million until 2017," Reuters says.

Jason McIntyre reported Wednesday night that a number of Sporting News employees had been let go.

Previously: Sporting News ships its last print edition

Forbes
Si Newhouse's net worth is $8.1 billion and his brother Donald is worth $7.3 billion, Forbes estimates in its new list of world billionaires. Both mens' wallets have thickened, at least by Forbes' count, since September, when it said they were worth $7.4 billion and $6.6 billion, respectively. The Newhouses owns Advance Publications, which recently laid off more than a thousand journalists and reduced print publication schedules to three days a week at several of its newspapers.

Other media fat cats, according to the list:

• Warren Buffett (No. 4, $53.5 billion)
• Thomson Reuters chair David Thomson (No. 24, $20.3 billion)
• Rupert Murdoch (No. 91, $11.2 billion)
• Mike Bloomberg (No. 13, $27 billion)
• Mort Zuckerman (No. 613, $2.4 billion)

Brad Kelley, the cigarette billionaire who Rafat Ali reported Monday is buying Lonely Planet from the BBC, is No. 792.

CJR | WWLTV | St. Tammany News
"In a town rich in history and its own peculiarities, NOLA.com seems like an out-of-town visitor," Ryan Chittum writes in a extended look at the New Orleans Times-Picayune's new reality as an online-focused newsroom.

Rather than the reinvention the news organization's managers and owners see, Advance's reduction of print frequency and staff at the newspaper "looks like an orderly liquidation," Chittum writes. He says that "Web-production quotas" have been discussed and that the newspaper's quality has declined: (more...)

Editor George Spohr says "new circulation starts have been incredible" at The (Carlisle, Pa.) Sentinel since The (Harrisburg, Pa.) Patriot-News reduced print frequency this month.

Spohr sent this picture of new sub orders and a note: "This is what happens when your competition goes to three days per week."

Seventy-six people subscribed Monday and more than 100 did Tuesday, Spohr wrote in an email to Poynter.

Spohr says Sentinel circulation director Phil Ferrara told him on a usual day, 10 people start subscriptions.

Figures from the Alliance for Audited Media show The Sentinel has an average Sunday circulation of 13,902 and an average circulation of 12,838 Monday-Saturday. The Patriot-News has an average Sunday circulation of 118,655 and average daily circulation of 70,446. (more...)

The Star-Ledger | South Jersey Times
Thirty-four employees of the (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger, including 18 full- and part-timers in the newsroom, will be laid off Wednesday, the paper's Ted Sherman and Kelly Heyboer report.

Publisher Richard Vezza "blamed the dramatic cuts on continuing financial pressures and the lingering effects of Hurricane Sandy, in an industry already hard hit by a steady decline in readership and sinking ad revenues."

While other Advance newspapers have reduced staff and print frequency concurrently, Vezza tells his the reporters "I've been involved in no other plans to take us to three days a week." But: "we are going to need to adjust our business as needs warrant," he said. In a letter to employees announcing the layoffs, Vezza said the Star-Ledger is "considering the possibility of outsourcing the printing and delivery of the newspaper."

The South Jersey Times also announced layoffs Wednesday. Other Advance papers in the Garden State will announce layoffs Wednesday, Sherman and Heyboer write.

Unlike many of Advance's other papers that have reduced print or home delivery frequency, The Star-Ledger -- though not its newsroom -- is unionized. Journalists at the Cleveland Plain Dealer are unionized, and they launched a pre-emptive campaign late last year against the possibility reductions might happen there. Still, the Plain Dealer announced it would lay off 58 people in 2013, reducing Guild members in its newsroom by about a third.

After Advance imported executives from AnnArbor.com and executive Lamar Graham announced NJ.com was hiring, he told The New York Times' David Carr "we don’t anticipate any changes with our New Jersey newspapers."

Previously: Will the Oregonian be the next Advance paper to reduce print? | Will other Advance newspapers face cuts like Times-Picayune, Alabama papers?

Nola.com | CBS | DashThirtyDash | Gambit Weekly
Before Sunday evening's "60 Minutes" story about the New Orleans Times-Picayune's reductions in staff and print frequency, Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss wrote a letter to readers saying the move seems like a success so far. He cited increased circulation and pageviews on Nola.com, the newspaper's website.

Average paid circulation is up both daily and Sunday for October and November 2012, the two most recent months since the change to the three-day print model, as compared to the average paid daily and Sunday circulation for September 2012, the most recent month before the change. ...

Meanwhile, NOLA.com's audience has continued to grow. In 2012, 41 million viewers came to NOLA.com, 7 million more viewers than in 2011.

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