Oregonian will be printed and delivered only three days a week. Sad.

[Note: I updated this post after first wrongly saying that the Oregonian will only be printed three days a week; actually it will be printed on the other days, just not delivered to homes.]

As a long-time subscriber I'm already missing you, Portland Oregonian daily newspaper. Now you're only going to be delivered to my home on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. 

With a "bonus" Saturday edition apparently being included with the Sunday paper.

Sad.

I recently watched a 60 Minutes segment about the New Orleans daily going the same direction -- publishing in print only three days a week, with online access being how readers get the paper on the other days.

However, the Oregonian still will be printed seven days a week, but only delivered to homes on three days. Meaning, for those of us who don't live next door to a paper box and have lots of quarters on hand, this is pretty much the same as not being printed at all on those other four days.

My wife really likes to read the newspaper the old-fashioned way. Sitting in a comfortable chair with a cup of morning coffee, turning the pages by hand, hearing the crinkle of processed wood pulp, then putting the pages in our recycling box.

I'm more of an online guy. But this is going to hurt for me also. Unless I'm on vacation, I don't read the Oregonian online. For one thing, the web site sucks. It isn't organized like a "real" newspaper. It doesn't have the look and feel of a print paper.

Well, I'm going to have to adjust. Maybe this will spur me to get an iPad. I bet the staff at our local newspaper, the Salem Statesman Journal, are even more nervous about their jobs than they were before.

[Oregonian] Publisher N. Christian Anderson III informed staff just before 10 am that the paper will continue to publish seven days a week, but will only offer home delivery on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, with the Saturday edition apparently delivered with Sunday papers. He also announced that newsroom layoffs are beginning immediately. 

Anderson told staff this morning that the company will inform them by Friday morning whether they are being laid off. 

"The newsroom was just told there will be 'significant layoffs,' w/some new hiring for digital," reporter Anna Griffin wrote on Twitter at 10:51 am. "Somebody open the bar tab."

Staffers were told they could be offered severance or take new jobs at a recently formed company, The Oregonian Publishing Co. 

Anderson also told the staffers the paper will move out of its iconic downtown building on Southwest Broadway to new offices.

Subscribers to the newspaper's four home-delivered print editions will also receive a web-based edition of the Monday, Tuesday and Thursday papers—it's called "MyDigitalO."

Peter Bhatia, the editor of the paper, is the only newsroom member whose fate was immediately clear this morning: He is moving to a new company, The Oregonian Publishing Co. as "vice president of content."

According to sources, Bhatia held a meeting with editors and reporters immediately after Anderson's announcement, telling staff that editors will now be known as "managing producers," and all employees moving to the new company will be required to take a fresh drug test.

Hey, if anyone is out of their right mind, it is the corporate executives of the Oregonian's parent company.

Personally, I'm in favor of every fired Oregonian employee getting a lifetime supply of marijuana as part of their severance package. (Will be legal in Washington state soon, right across the Columbia river.) Getting a new job in journalism these days must be really difficult.

Comments

[Aileen Kaye]

This is the pits.