So they've cut off free coffee at the Palm Beach Post now? That's the word from Pulp sources. It's only the least substantial (but perhaps most symbolic and short-sighted) cut happening at the newspaper, including about a dozen pages a week from the printed product. Call it the Other Incredible Shrinking Newspaper. Editor John Bartosek, aka "Bart," posted the following on the newspaper's bulletin boards late last week:
08.03.12Folks:
Tom's note last week on reducing newsprint consumption said we'll make some changes in sections. I explained a few of those things at a meeting today with some metro editors and reports, and I want to let the rest of you know about it as well.
You'll see most of these changes in the next 4-6 weeks.
- Combine Local and Biz sections a few days a week. Many of you who've been here a while remember that we did this regularly for years.
- Combine Sports and Classified sections a few days a week. That, too, is something that we did often for many years.
- Take about a dozen pages a week out of the paper. Most of that will come from the A Section and Sports, generally the two largest sections, and a little will come from TGIF.
- Eliminate the Sunday Biz section by moving the best features to other days.
- Drop zoning on the weekly Food section and move it to Wednesday distribution. That'll save us some production time.
- Reconfigure the NPost zones to reduce the number of them, which again should save production time.
We're looking at a number of other possible changes involving stocks, TVPost, Comics, and Sunday Opinion, but no decisions have been made on changes there yet.
Bart
