New York Times shrinks and loses opinion

The New York Times has shrunk slighty from yesterday.The paper will now be 12" wide which is supposedly the industry standard having lost an inch and a half over night.

Cutting the size has been an increasingly frequent measure among broadsheets to reduce costs associated with printing.

Whilst the loss of about 11% of the paper has been partly mitigated by an increase in the number of pages,it has been to the detriment of the opinion columns


“

We are losing, to our great regret, a whole lot of letters space,” said Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor. He added that Times columnists (and the public editor) will not lose words, but Op Ed's and art will have to be trimmed down a bit. Mr. Rosenthal said that his section would publish a note to readers on Monday regarding the change, and that more letters—or in some cases longer responses—will run exclusively online.
But "letters and outside op-ed pieces are critical to our opinion pages," he added, "[and] it’s not enough to tell our readers to go online.”(

from New York Observer)

Another case of newspapers deciding that print opinion is on the decline