Times-Picayune, Postmedia push digital

More newspapers are looking at life beyond print—and the answer inevitably is digital. Postmedia, publisher of several Canadian big-city dailies including The Gazette and the Calgary Herald, recently announced it will no longer publish some Sunday editions and will instead focus on its online distribution. “All roles, from managers on down, will be redefined with a digital focus. We are also looking at changes to the weekday paper sectioning, as well as the number of presses we use to print it each day,” Alan Allnutt, publisher and editor in chief of The Gazette, wrote in a memo to staff. That bit of news came just days after the New Orleans Times-Picayune announced that it would cut daily publication to three days a week and shift its focus to digital—a move that some viewed as necessary, even though the Times-Picayune remains profitable, as Jim Romenesko reported. Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan said that while it’s a sad step for a storied newspaper, it’s also an expected evolution. Newspapers need to “embrace their inevitable transition to online news in the smartest and most forward-thinking way possible—and pull through until paying for online news is an accepted practice,” he wrote. “Or, get bought by a rich guy. Or, preferably, both.”

But still others were skeptical of what media analyst Ken Doctor called a “forced march to digital.” Forbes contributor John McQuaid, a former journalist at the Times-Picayune, said Advance Publications, the owner of the Times-Picayune, will have to work hard to step into a digital future. “If you want to do what Advance says it’s doing, you have to think hard about how to integrate journalism into the digital world,” he warned. And GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram asked if the moves at the Times-Picayune and Postmedia will in fact stem the bleeding or cause the decline of print to accelerate further. “Even the New York Times’ subscription model, which is one of the most successful in the industry, is not producing enough revenue to make up for that ongoing revenue decline,” he pointed out. But Doctor did give credit to Advance for taking bold steps into the future: “Now, it is embracing full bore the principles of digital first, part of a movement we’re going to see across the U.S. and Europe, as publishers respond to the same environment Newhouse is facing.”

• New Orleans Newspaper Scales Back in Sign of Print Upheaval (NY Times)

• The Digital Future of The Times-Picayune (Forbes)

• Print dies a little more as Postmedia announces cuts (GigaOm)

• The Times-Picayune and the Completely Logical Collapse of the Newspaper Industry (Gawker)

• Postmedia cuts more jobs, Sunday editions (The Globe and Mail)

• A Doomed Romance With a New Orleans Newspaper (NY Times)

• Postmedia Cuts: Layoffs Expected As Sunday Editions Nixed, National Post Reduces Publication (Huffington Post)

• New Orleans’ Forced March to Digital (Newsonomics)

• New Orleans, newspapers and the beginning of the end (GigaOm)

• What New Orleans Can Expect When Its Newspaper Goes Away (Forbes)