The Wall Street Journal yesterday advised the nine employees staffing its Boston office that, henceforth, the former heart of the financial newspaper's mutual fund coverage would be absorbed by its New York bureau, Mutual Fund Wire reported yesterday.

By way of explanation, Managing Editor Robert Thomson said the newspaper remains "in the midst of a profound downturn in advertising revenue," The Associated Press yesterday reported.

News Corp., which owns the Journal, did not announce plans to close the Boston offices of Dow Jones Newswires and MarketWatch, Reuters reported yesterday.

Plans to close the Journal's Boston bureau followed Tuesday's announcement that the Journal would stop selling a London edition and focus instead on launching a redesigned product for all of Europe in mid-November, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

An announcement yesterday by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel confirmed the acceptance of buyout offers by 29 full-time and five part-time staffers, Editor & Publisher reported.

Though no names have been released, several employees who opted for the buyout offer are suspected to be longtime staff members of the newspaper. Reports include veteran columnists, reporters and critics of the paper in the list of staff that will be leaving the paper.

The deadline to accept the buyout was Monday night, with layoffs to follow if not enough employees accept the deal. The buyouts mark a third attempt by the paper to reduce staff and costs. Greg Pearson of the newsroom employees union has reported that executives for the Journal Sentinel expect to have to cut "substantially more" positions.

The closure of Claremont New Hampshire's The Eagle Times will be investigated by state authorities, The Associated Press reported. In an e-mail sent Thursday, the publisher announced to employees that Friday's edition would be the paper's last.

Officials will be taking steps to establish whether the closure is an infraction of a New Hampshire state law that stipulates employers must give employees a 60-day notice before shutting their business, according to the article, posted by Editor & Publisher.

The closure will put 120 employees out of a job.

The Union Leader reported that the state's Rapid Response Team would be made available to assist laid off workers and their families.

"We did our best to continue the operations, but the economy and the changes in the newspaper industry have made it impossible to continue this business," the memo, sent by Harvey Hill, company president stated. Eagle Publications, which also includes three other weekly publications, will file for bankruptcy today, according to the memo, the Union Leader reported.

Gannett Co. Inc has proposed the lay off of more than 1,000 employees in response to the ongoing revenue declines, the Washington Business Journal reported Tuesday night.

The cuts will affect the company's community publishing division and will not reach national publication USA Today.

The first economic quarter saw Gannett's total revenue decline 18 percent, finishing at US$1.38 billion. Advertising revenue was the major loser, down 34 percent to $723 million while circulation revenue fell 3.1 percent to $300 million. This left net income for Gannett at $77.4 million down 60 percent.

Gannett has already imposed cost cutting measures on its employees, who earlier in the year were required to take unpaid furloughs and others temporary salary reductions.

The biggest move involved the closure of the Tuscon Citizen, Arizona's oldest continually running newspaper.