Necessity, who is the mother of invention. — Plato

In addition to the long-used strategies of layoffs (a euphemism these days for firing), buy-outs and wage freezes, financially pressed newspapers also have come up with the following cost-cutting and/or revenue-enhancing initiatives since 2008:
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Closing the printing plant and hiring an outside printer
The Sun-Times, which has seen its circulation drop in step with the industry, will close its 12-year-old printing plant in September 2011 and lay off more than 400 employees, saving the company more than $10 million annually. The Chicago Tribune Media Group will print the Sun-Times and seven of its suburban dailies. The Tribune has distributed Sun-Times publications since 2007.

Freeing the principal owners of debt at the expense of investors
MediaNews Group, one of America's largest newspaper chains, entered bankruptcy in January 2010. The loser will be long-time investor Hearst Corp., which stands to lose $317 million in the bankruptcy. Neither owner Dean Singleton nor long-time business partner Richard B. Scudder will lose a nickel in the bankruptcy, because neither ever put any of his own money into the company. [Link]

Charging for mobile device subscriptions
The New York Times put a paywall in place in early 2011 for access to its online news stories on mobile devices, such as smartphones, ereaders, and the iPad to read anything except the "top news stories" of each day. In the first four months, the Times signed up 224,000 paid subscribers for full access to its website, 57,000 mobile device subscriptions, 100,000 users whose digital access was sponsored by Ford’s Lincoln division, and 756,000 print subscribers who registered their accounts on the website

Charging for online content
As online advertising has declined, the business model of giving the news away for free in exchange for website hits no longer seems viable —— if it ever was. The New York Times has announced that it will start charging nonsubscribers for access starting in January 2011. Nonsubscribers will be allowed 20 free visits a month, but then they will be charged for articles. Many newspapers are rethinking the custom of allowing nonsubscribers unlimited free access to their news websites. Only a handful of dailies charge for content at present.

Closing newspapers
Although over-leveraged Journal Register Co. has not filed for bankruptcy protection, it has stopped repaying its debt to conserve cash, has quietly closed more than three-dozen weekly newspapers and has seen the value of its shares fall to barely half a cent. Journal Register went on a buying spree in the 1900s, eventually acquiring more than 300 newspapers, and now is unable to pay its debt obligations.

Stopping pay for blogs
The Washington Post discontinued its practice in early 2009 of paying staff writers for blogs or other online extras. Some staffers had been able to make up to $5,000 for their blogs [Link].

Ending dividends to shareholders
McClatchy Newspapers announced it would stop paying shareholders any dividends after April 1. The savings will be used to "preserve cash for debt repayment."

Paying for page views of blogs instead of salaries to reporters
Clarity Media, owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz, has launched several aggregator news websites called Examiner in cities across the nation, including the Albuquerque Examiner, and is recruiting "examiner" writers (bloggers) in different subjects who will be paid $2.50 to $10 for every 1,000 page views. There will be no salaried professional reporters.

Going to a nonprofit business model
At a time of layoffs and budget cuts at traditional newspapers, a few news media outlets are emerging with a nonprofit business model that relies on foundations and donors for income rather than advertising sales. It's a relatively untested model that could take years to put together, but it already exists at some papers [Link].

Pooling expensive resources
Denver stations KMGH and KUSA announced plans in early 2009 to pool their helicopter coverage. TV stations in Chicago and Philadelphia made similar decisions earlier. It's all about cost-saving ways to cover stories that every station chases.

Offering early retirement to older employees
In early 2009, The Austin-American Statesman offered a voluntary early-retirement plan for employees 55 and older who have worked at least 10 years with the newspaper.

Cutting back fringe area circulation, sections and employees
The Albuquerque Journal discontinued local columnist Gene Grant in December and announced that as of Jan. 31, 2010, it would no longer distribute a print edition to newsstands or subscribers in many outlying parts of New Mexico (Link). The Journal also reduced publication of its Rio Rancho and West Side editions from six days a week to two, and it cut back its Business Outlook section from twice a week to once. The newspaper has enforced a hiring freeze for many positions for the past year, and laid off several employees — including several in the newsroom — in the second week of 2009 (Link).

Asking employees to take pay cut
The Sun-Times Media Group in Chicago has asked all unionized employees to take a 7 percent pay cut.

Defaulting on debt
Some newspaper chains are expected to default on their debt payments in 2009 and go out of business, leaving some American cities with no daily newspaper (Link).

Going into bankruptcy
The Tribune Company, owner of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun and five other dailies, went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in December amid talk it might sell the Chicago Cubs baseball team and the Tribune Tower building in Chicago. The company was purchased by billionaire real estate developer Sam Zell in 2007 in a deal that put the overwhelming burden of debt on the company’s employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (Link).

Selling company assets
Several media companies are selling long-held divisions outside their core business to generate cash. In 2009 The Chicago Tribune sold its ownership of the Chicago Cubs baseball team for $900 million, and in 2011 the New York Times sold more than half its stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team for $117 million.

Sharing content with competitors
Two major rivals, The Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, have agreed to start sharing content as a way to supplement the reduced news staffs at both newspapers. They are the largest of newspapers who recently have announced content-sharing plans (Link).

Skipping a week of pay
The Seattle Times (Link) told 500 employees that everyone had to take one week off without pay by the end of February 2009. This would in effect be a pay cut of about 2 percent. Subsequently, MediaNews Group [Link] also told its employees to take a week off without pay by the end of March 2009.

Creating "backpack journalists" with no office
The Observer-Eccentric newspaper chain in the Detroit area has closed some newsrooms and merged others, issuing laptops to reporters and photographers and telling them to set up mobile offices in coffee shops, libraries and community centers and transmit their stories and pictures wirelessly from there.

Cutting back home delivery of printed papers
The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press (Link) have ceased home delivery of printed papers except on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. On the other days, subscribers must go online to get an electronic replica of the newspaper or buy one on the newsstand. To see the “paperless newspaper,” go to the Free Press circulation site, click on “Try It Today,” and then click on “Quick Tour.” Other dailies in 2008 also cut back on the number of publication days for their print edition while posting news on their Web sites daily. They include The Capital Times in Madison, Wis., which offers home delivery only two days; the Superior (Wis.) Telegram, also reduced to two days; and the East Valley Tribune near Phoenix, Ariz., which dropped to four days a week. (Link).

Shipping jobs overseas
The Orange County (Calif.) Register began a pilot program in 2008 in hiring lower-paid copy editors in India or other overseas locations, and MediaNews Group announced some prepress work already is done overseas with the possibility of copy editing and page makeup going overseas as well (Link). Other chains are consolidating copy editing at one paper, such as Newhouse moving all of The Flint Journal copy editing to the other side of Michigan at another Newhouse paper, The Grand Rapids Press.

Discontinuing the print edition
The Christian Science Monitor announced it would discontinue its print edition in April 2009 and be available only on the Web (Link). Several other newspapers in the U.S. and Scandinavia also discontinued or cut back on print copies in favor of publication on the Web. Several Web-only publications now exist across the country. Web-only publications finally received industry respect in December when they were invited for the first time to compete for Pulitzer Prizes.

Offering less frequent publication
The National Newspaper Guild is one of many organizations which have reduced the frequency of its publications. The Guild changed its monthly newsletter to bimonthly in 2008 to save printing and mailing costs.

Combining publications for synergy
A publisher of three weekly newspapers combined them into one countywide paper to cut costs and gain synergy (Link).

Stopping classifieds on Mondays and Tuesdays
To cut down on newsprint and ink, its second largest expense, the Cincinnati Enquirer ceased running classified ads on Mondays and Tuesdays. The Gannett-owned paper is also switching to a narrower page-format and condensing some of its sections. The daily television grids will be reduced to include only evening programming of the major broadcast stations (Link). Another Gannett paper, the Press & Sun-Bulletin of Binghamton, N.Y., also announced it would not run classifieds on Mondays or Tuesdays and is combining sections for fewer pages (Link).

'Suspending" publication during recession
Some newspapers have “suspended” publication, as opposed to an outright shutdown, at least until economic conditions improve, implying that they might resume publication after economic conditions improve. Examples are a weekly in Iowa (Link) and in Colorado (Link).

Stopping contributions to employee retirement plans
MediaNews Group, a privately owned chain which owns a controlling interest in seven daily newspapers in New Mexico, announced that it would not make company contributions to employees’ 401(k) retirement accounts in 2009 (Link). Village Voice Media also has suspended company payments to their employees' 401(K) plan, and also announced that senior managers and officers would take a 15% pay cut and editors and publishers would take a 10% pay cut (Link). Lee Enterprises, which owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and many other dailies, and whose stock has dropped from the mid-$40 range to $2.50, also has suspended 401(k) matches (Link).

Moving from print to the Web
Because ink, paper and distribution are such major costs, several organizations and media companies have switched from print to the Web. As one example, late in 2008, a Vietnam veterans national newsletter switched members over from receiving an eight-page print edition every two months to reading it as an eight-page pdf on a members-only section of the organization's Website.