The New York Times | Gambit
Update: The Times-Picayune has confirmed these reports.

The Times-Picayune in New Orleans may cease daily publication and plans deep staff cuts, reports the Times' David Carr. Editor Jim Amoss will leave the paper, according to Carr, as will managing editors Peter Kovacs and Dan Shea. The two managing editors were not involved in meetings held this week by incoming publisher Ricky Mathews, who already was set to replace Ashton Phelps Jr. as publisher later this year.

The Times-Picayune "will likely publish two or three times a week rather than daily," employees of the paper told Carr. The Picayune's owner, Advance Publications, did something similar with the Ann Arbor News in 2009, cutting staff and focusing its efforts on AnnArbor.com.

Carr described the staff cuts as "large"; Gambit's Kevin Allman says a source told him via email:

The staff will immediately be whacked by at least a third (from 150 to 100 or fewer reporters). Top brass will be fired and reporters who remain aboard will take sharp salary cuts and be expected to start blogging through the day [for affiliated website NOLA.com].

According to Carr, the Picayune "has avoided some of the deeper cuts in the industry, in part because the newspaper played such a critical role in the coverage of Katrina and its aftermath." The newspaper published online for three days, and after it resumed the print paper, "its follow-up coverage was praised as being deep and meaningful, especially in a city that was short on good information and rife with rumor and chaos." (more...)

The Audit Bureau of Circulations issued its biannual report of newspaper circulation yesterday. The news was generally pretty good: At many papers average Sunday circulation was up and average daily circulation was up or flat. The figures, which allow publishers to roll in digital subscriptions and branded editions, offer the first apples-to-apples comparison of newspaper circulation figures since the ABC changed its reporting rules in September 2010. The ABC offered charts from the Top 25 newspapers in the United States; this roundup collects examples of how the numbers played around the country. || Related: Several big circulation gainers charge for online access, almost none of the big losers do | Paper-by-paper circulation figures (Gannett blog)

• The New York Times is still No. 3. (Wall Street Journal)

• The Boston Globe's circ up for first time since 2004. (Boston Globe)

• Dallas Morning News' paywall is working, arguably, and digital-only subscriptions are earning Belo about $8 million/year.

• San Antonio Express News' Sunday circ is leveling off. (mySA.com)

• Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News: Sunday up, Monday-Friday down. (Philly.com) (more...)

New figures released today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show that nationally, daily circulation was up .68 percent for digital and print at the 618 papers reporting; Sunday circulation was up 5 percent at the 532 papers reporting. But some papers did better than that, and some did worse.

Three of the five newspapers that posted the largest percentage gains in Sunday circulation now charge for online access (The Dallas Morning News, The New York Times and Newsday), while four of the five with the largest drops do not, and one, the Los Angeles Times, only started to charge in March.

When looking at daily circulation, two of the five papers that gained the most charge (The New York Times and Newsday), while none of the five biggest losers do. See table: (more...)

This afternoon's longread: Charles Apple deconstructs how Cleveland's Plain Dealer covered the school shooting that killed three students. Some shorter stories to scan before leaving work:

• Indiana TV station begins airing stories on the college admissions process, based on full access to Butler University's deliberations. Parents of college-bound students: It's a must. (RTV6)
• PolitiFact has reached an agreement with Hearst that will put its fact-checking reports on 25 TV station newscasts. (PolitiFact is operated by the Tampa Bay Times, which is owned by Poynter.) (TVNewsCheck)
• TechRaking 2012: Google, the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Public Insight Network will host a daylong conference in April on investigative reporting and technology. (The Atlantic)
• Two graphs show the decline of newspaper advertising since 1950 and newspaper circulation since 1990. (The Atlantic via Jack Shafer and Timothy Noah)
• "I wish we had more talk like this in journalism," tweeted Jonathan Stray: "Audiences, Outcomes, and Determining User Needs"

Happy hour reading: Fishbowl DC's Betsy Rothstein describes her interview with Hunter Walker about the fallout from her "sexpot" campaign reporters post.

Centre Daily Times
Centre Daily Times Executive Editor Bob Heisse says the newspaper in State College, Pa., sold out of Monday's issue marking the death of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. The press run was 32,500 — compared to 18,000 on a typical day — so the newspaper has printed another 7,500 copies. (The paper is also selling posters of Monday's front page.) Its website exceeded 500,000 page views Monday, among the top few traffic days ever for the site — all of which have stemmed from news about the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State. "Our highest Web day was 880,000 page views on Nov. 9, the day Paterno announced his retirement and then was fired later in the night," Heisse tells me via email. "The next day topped 700,000. ... Today is soaring and we're about to start live video streaming of the Penn State Faculty Senate meeting." || Earlier: Penn State’s Daily Collegian worked through the night to publish special Paterno section | Pennsylvania’s front pages pay tribute to Joe Paterno

Politico's new Manhattan distribution plan includes delivery to about 900 people: "financial executives, media personnel, both broadcast and print, as well as select personnel in Madison Avenue advertising agencies," according to Chief Operating Officer Kim Kingsley. Another 800 will be dropped at those locations for other staff and visitors. Among the news outlets that will receive copies:

• ABC News
• CBS News
• CBS Radio Network
• NBC News
• MSNBC
• CNN
• Fox News Channel
• Fox News Radio
• Thomson Reuters
• The New York Times
• The Associated Press
• ProPublica
• The Daily News

And 2,400 copies will be available at 24 boxes around Manhattan, near media headquarters, financial institutions and subway stations. (more...)

The New Haven Register reports that its decision to outsource printing operations and move "key operations" downtown will enable the paper to launch an "open newsroom" similar to one at The Register Citizen in Torrington, Conn. The move, which will result in 105 layoffs, is the latest by Journal Register Co. to consolidate printing operations at its papers. Paper Cuts has chronicled some of these changes:

• In February 2011, The Oneida Daily Dispatch in New York said 34 people would lose their jobs when it outsourced its printing, mailroom and delivery operations.
• In December 2010, The Daily Freeman in Kingston, N.Y., moved its printing and mailroom operations to its sister newspaper in Troy, which already had taken over production for JRC's paper in Saratoga Springs. Delivery was switched to an outside vendor. Fifty-eight jobs were cut.
• In July 2009, The Register Citizen moved its printing to the New Haven Register. Now the Hartford Courant will print that paper too, along with the Middletown Press and others.

(more...)