Behind the Headlines

By Paula Wethington

I’ve been hearing and reading rumors about this situation at the nearby metro papers for the past few days. Now that the announcement is official, I still find it to be quite a shock.

The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News will “redirect staff, resources to digital delivery of news,” according to headline posted at Freep after the company meetings and press conference took place.

Translation: single-copy and news stand sales will continue seven days a week. But home delivery will be available only three days a week: Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.

The recurring question has been how people without computer access can keep up with the newspaper during the off days.

The answer is: picking up a newspaper at a single-copy sales point or participate in a mail subscription service.

It’s obvious to me, as a reader of those papers and as someone who works in the newspaper business, that the Detroit Media Partnership had to make a difficult decision one way or another.

If you are familiar with the print version of those publications, you know how much automotive advertising went into those products. Well, consider what’s happening in the automotive industry right now.

And if you haven’t been familiar with the headlines about the newspaper industry, here’s a roundup that names several Michigan papers.