By Joe Strupp
Full Article: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...

NEW YORK 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."

Read full article here: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...