As part of a online focused strategy, Detroit Media Partnership newspapers, The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, will launch a trial distribution of the papers on electronic readers through a partnership with Plastic Logic, Newspapers & Technology reported.

The papers, which currently print more than 470,000 weekday copies, will combine and be released as one 32 page electronic section. The Plastic Logic readers operate on a 8 by 11 inch display and are not to be commercially released until 2010.

Detroit Media Partnership chief executive officer Dave Hunke disclosed the company's plan to work with Plastic Logic to offer a lease arrangement of the e-readers to consumers. DMP has sourced 100 of the readers for evaluation, according to Newspapers & Technology.

In December, DMP reduced home delivery of the two papers to Thursday, Friday and Sunday, choosing to focus its resources on online distribution.