Downsizing: The Washington Post cuts its daily business section

Written for the Editors Weblog:

As newspapers lose advertising revenue to the Internet, papers like The Washington Post find themselves forced to reorganize their layouts to save money on printing. Just in the last year, The Post has cut the Sunday Source section and Book World in addition to combining the Sunday Arts and Styles sections. Now, the paper plans on eliminating its business section six days out of the week and moving the important business stories to the "A" section.

"The A section gets more readers than the Business section, so we'll have more readers for our business coverage. We aren't changing the size of the staff" Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of The Post and former top editor of The Wall Street Journal, told Reuters.

Starting on March 30th, The Post will stop running the daily business section and start running a new Sunday Business section with a more complete summary of the week's business news, including personal stories and enhanced graphics. On Tuesdays through Saturday, The Post will offer a half-page spread with statistics on the standing of major stocks, rather than running full listings. The Style section will also undergo several changes such as moving some comics online, and eliminating one crossword puzzle and the chess and poker columns.

It may seem ironic that The Post is cutting its business section in the midst of a financial crisis, just when readers are looking for guidance from the media, however it is the financial crisis that has contributed to this decision, along with plummeting ad revenues. The Post is certainly not the only paper reducing its size, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will also cut its stand-alone business section while the Los Angeles Times has merged its California section into the main news section.

Source: Reuters, Huffington Post