Biz Paper Closes Regional Editions
The Wall Street Journal will stop publishing its six weekly regional editions to focus on its national edition, which commands much higher advertising rates.
The paper's managing editor, Paul Steiger, announced the decision, which eliminates 34 jobs, to Journal staffers in a memo circulated Wednesday morning, saying it "no longer makes economic sense" to continue the regional editions.
Steiger said the paper faced a choice of expanding the editions to cover at least 48 states or shutting them down. The six editions, which have appeared Wednesdays as four-page additions in the paper's "Marketplace" section, cover 16 states.
"We concluded that the people, space and other resources involved were better devoted to national news and advertising," Steiger's memo said.
The Journal launched the regional editions with a Texas version in 1993, followed by editions in Florida, California, the Southeast, the Northwest and New England.
A staff writer at the Florida regional paper, Evan Perez — who is currently assigned to covering the Palm Beach recount— told CBSNews.com he found out in a phone call Tuesday night.
Perez said his supervisors admitted "this is something they did not foresee happening."
Dick Tofel, a spokesman for Dow Jones & Co., which publishes the Journal, said that with ad rates in the regional papers far lower than comparable spots in the national paper, the regional editions were just "modestly profitable."
A full-page black-and-white ad in the Northwest regional edition, for example, cost just $11,000, compared with $155,000 in the national edition, Tofel said.
The Los Angeles Times made a similar move in September, closing down all but one of 15 local sections in order to shift resources to big regional stories. Executives at the paper, which has been acquired by Tribune Co., said the 2-year-old local editions never attracted enough advertising to make them succeed financially.
The 34 staffers will continue to work on other assignments at the paper until the end of the year, and they are being invited to apply for other open positions at the Journal and other parts of Dow Jones, including Dow Jones Newswires.
But it's not clear there are enough jobs for everyone. As Perez, who currently occupies a Miami office he says was vacated once before after an earlier round of Journal staff cuts, put it, "There are no promises."
Tofel said more than half of those laid off will get new jobs.
The Wall Street Journal has the nation's second-largest daily circulation, with 1.76 million versus 1.78 million copies for USA Today, according to the latest biannual survey by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Dow Jones' stock fell $1-5/16 to $58-1/4 Wednesday. The company also released downgraded earnings forecasts.