Virginia paper outsources page production to Chicago Tribune

Posted by Savita Sauvin on March 10, 2010 at 4:41 PM

As a part of the Tribune Co.'s efforts to reduce costs and direct resources to focus on local coverage, the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia will outsource page design, formatting and editing pages to the company's flagship paper, the Chicago Tribune. This announcement came to the staff at both the newspapers on Monday, the Tribune reported.

The transfer of responsibilities from the Daily Press suggests elimination of copy editors and designers, Hampton Roads reported. The newsroom staff will likely be reduced by 15 percent, Digby Solomon, president and chief executive of the Daily Press, told the Tribune.

"We're going to have to learn how to really focus our resources on that which really differentiates us. For us, that's the local stuff. This allows us to save some money on personnel ... without impacting the reporters, columnists, photographers who are out generating uniquely local content," he said, according to the Tribune.

Beginning next week, the newspaper will also see addition of pages to the local, national and international news sections, with national and international stories edited in Chicago, while the local stories will continue to be edited at the Daily Press, Solomon was quoted as saying by Hampton Roads.

"Newspapers have to focus on their truly differentiating expertise, which for most local papers is local content and watchdog journalism," he said, adding that he anticipates this move could save the newspaper US$1 million a year.

The smaller Tribune newspapers have been receiving edited, formatted and headlined non-local stories from the Chicago Tribune since last spring, which are then published by the news titles on their pages, according to the Tribune.

According to Ernie Gates, editor of The Daily Press, the outsourcing decision will affect the newspaper in three ways - the non-local content such as weather and comics will be routed to the "central desk" in Chicago, which has access to the newspaper's content; all local news will be edited and formatted by the Daily Press and finally sent to Chicago for quality check before it gets published; and the front page and sports section will be designed and edited at the Newport News, Editor & Publisher reported.

Other newspapers trying similar methods include E.W. Scripps, which has centralised copy and design activities in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to E&P.