Content squeeze at Daily Breeze

Monday and Tuesday papers will be cut in half, per this memo to the South Bay Daily Breeze staff from executive editor Phillip Sanfield.

All,

A heads up to a few cost-containment moves that we're making starting next week (11/10).

Monday and Tuesday editions will be two-sections rather than four. In addition to newsprint savings, there's also expense reductions from Southwest Offset Printing (our printer) for using one press instead of two.

On Mondays, we're taking the health content from la.com and merging it into the A section. A4 will be health-oriented ads and content, and the A5 Take Out page will be themed to health. Monday A3, at least during the school year, will be focused on education (content that is now on A4). We've been stretched thin on A3 Monday content so this should relieve that issue, though we're going to look to add more local stories to Monday's front page. Biz Monday pages will be eliminated and its content will be merged into the the biz page throughout the rest of the week. The Monday B section will be lead by sports, followed by 3 pages of comics/puzzles/tv and then classified.

Tuesday edition is unchanged with respect to cityside. Again, it's a 2-section paper, with second section same as Monday. The la.com style content goes away. On Saturdays, we're eliminating la.com cover content and replacing it with the Faith section. Essentially moving the Faith cover and its associated pages out of the A section and taking over as the features cover.

We're obviously in an extremely difficult economic climate and we're trying to make expense-saving moves that have the least amount of impact on our local coverage. As always, let me know if you have questions.

Phillip