The East Valley Tribune, a daily newspaper primarily serving Phoenix suburbs, will become a free distribution newspaper publishing four days a week starting in January, the publisher announced Monday.
The changes will mean a loss of 142 jobs, about 40 percent of the newspaper's staff, Publisher Julie Moreno said.
Moreno told ABC15 News, "we have associates that are extremely talented that won't continue to be with us once we make this transition."
The Tribune, owned by Freedom Communications, also will withdraw from the Scottsdale and Tempe markets in January, when it will begin distributing print editions to driveways and newspaper racks in the other markets it serves -- Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert and Queen Creek.
The Tribune will continue with its online edition seven days a week, Moreno said.
The newspaper has suffered declining revenue in the past year and has not been able to cut costs fast enough to offset the decline, despite three rounds of layoffs, according to Moreno.
She added, "the newspaper industry has faced some significant challenges this year and they've been made more challenging gy the economic situation that we're currently in nationwide." "We saw this as an opportunity to re-invent the business model for our publication."
