PressEthic

The Associated Press is reporting that the Wall Street Journal will reduce the overall size of the paper to meet widely used industry standards and save $18 million annually.

Many other newspapers, including the Washington Post, the L.A. Times and USA Today, have already reduced their paper’s size in an effort to save money. According to the article, the Journal will cut off three inches, the equivalent of approximately one column, from its width and add more graphics and photos. The paper will also reduce the number of “jumps” to pages inside the newspaper. The AP also reported that the Journal is the last major newspaper to change its format.

The article explains some of the ways this move will save the Journal money.

Dow Jones says reducing the Journal's width will save about $18 million a year. It will bring the newspaper in line with a widely used industry standard, allowing the newspaper to be printed in far more places than it is currently. As it is, the Journal can't be printed in Hawaii because it can't find presses wide enough to accommodate its size, meaning the papers have to be flown in, Christie said.

I wonder how much money could be saved by auditing operations and eliminating expenses like flying copies of the newspaper to Hawaii. While these changes may save $18 million, they also reduce the amount of space for editorial content. Is this another example of editorial content being sacrificed for photos, ads, or other graphical elements?