The changes ahead

As you've heard, starting Sunday we'll make some changes in The Pilot. To save money, we'll eliminate and combine sections and cut a few other pages. In the Opinion section, we will cut one page on both Sunday and Monday.

We'll do some rearranging and adjusting in Forum on Sunday. On Monday, we'll do entirely without an op-ed page. We'll do our best to keep what's most important and to make these changes in the smartest way we can.

We will remain the source of the best commentary in Hampton Roads. Over the coming weeks, we'll add online features, including an editorial blog at PilotOnline.com.

But there's no hiding the fact that we will lose a few features from the newspaper. And I suspect you won't like it any more than I do. These aren't happy changes. But they are necessary in these unhappy times.

You've already heard from Publisher Maurice Jones and Editor Denis Finley. Let me add a few things, by way of explanation.

Newspapers are coping with two intertwined issues:

One is this awful recession. As long as I've been in this business, economic downturns have always hit hard in the newsroom. Never this hard, though. I've never seen a recession like this one.

And as long as I've been in this business, too, newspapers have emerged slowly from economic troubles. The Pilot has been doing that for 150 years. We'll do it again.

Second, the business itself is changing. Technology has transformed every job in America. Gathering the news and writing opinions aren't that much different. In fact, we have new tools that can make us better, faster, more accurate.

But technology has radically altered how we deliver news and opinion. Thirty years ago, you could read The Pilot any way you wanted, so long as it was on paper. You can now get us on your phone or pad or computer. In fact, across all media, we have more readers today than we've ever had.

But the enterprise of news - the dollars and cents - is mutating, and that makes the business much more challenging.

Newspapers have always made money selling advertisements and the newspaper. Companies made so much money that way, in fact, that they could afford to build things like weather channels.

As some news and information has migrated to the Internet, so has part of our business, disrupting the usual flow of dollars and cents. Advertisements are not nearly as lucrative online, and the news itself is free. You see the problem.

This isn't about newspapers, especially. With a few notable exceptions, it's hard right now to make money providing information online. Or enough to support an enterprise as big as The Pilot.

The Internet has been ubiquitous for only a decade and a half. I suspect the advertising and subscription models online will change, as they already have.

In the meantime, The Pilot has to cut costs to make ends properly meet. Over the next few months, people at The Pilot will lose their jobs. The newsroom will be smaller in January than it was the January before. Pages will be cut all through the newspaper. We'll watch every penny even more carefully.

I hope, with all my heart, that this recession ends soon. I hope, too, that the economy of the Internet will begin to adequately respect and reward the creators of content critical to our lives.

As a matter of course, I hope that both of those things happen sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I'll make sure you know how we're doing and what we're doing to adapt and compete.

If I can answer any questions or concerns, you can reach me at the email address at the top of the editorial page; by mail at 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk 23510; or by phone at (757) 446-2251.

Donald Luzzatto is The Pilot's editorial page editor.