NYT Cuts Back Metro Section Coverage

Just two weeks after sending a memo to staff denying a NY Post story that the paper is in the midst of weighing cutbacks that include “ending the print edition of its Sunday magazine, folding the Metro section, making the weekly book review section online-only and leasing out space in its Midtown headquarters,” comes news that the story was at least partially true.

An Aug. 2 email to NY Times staff stated that the Metro section is cutting back and will no longer review restaurants, theaters and cultural events beyond the city borders. The story is reported by what may seem an odd source, the Hollywood news site, Deadline. Their concern is focused on the impact on regional theaters. Deadline quotes from the memo:

… we will publish our final reviews and features in the New Jersey, Westchester, Long Island and Connecticut editions on August 28. The Metropolitan section as it appears in New York City will still be published and circulated throughout the region, but it will no longer include zoned content.

The story notes, “The move also has heightened anxieties on the Times culture desk that reassignments or cuts in the department’s full-time staff are imminent.”

The move also raises concerns about whether more changes will come to country’s last remaining standalone newspaper book section, beyond the recent announcement that all book coverage, including daily and Sunday, is now consolidated under Pamela Paul,

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