USA Today staff shakeup shifts focus to digital media

News daily USA Today will dramatically overhaul its organizational structure as the publication shifts its emphasis away from its print roots to target digital media. USA Today will no longer assign separate managing editors to oversee sections like News, Sports, Life and Money, instead breaking up the editorial staff into a series of so-called "content rings"--the move will create five new departments, including Digital Development (led by vice president Steve Kurtz), which will focus on creating and maintaining technology and systems to support the publication's online, mobile, iPhone and iPad efforts. "We have to go where the audience is," editor John Hillkirk tells the Associated Press. "If people are hitting the iPad like crazy, or the iPhone or other mobile devices, we've got to be there with the content they want, when they want it." The makeover will result in about 130 layoffs, translating to 9 percent of the paper's staff.

USA Today's circulation is in decline, sliding from 2.3 million in 2007 to its current 1.83 million. Advertising revenues are also eroding: The publication sold 580 advertising pages in its most recent quarter ending in June, down from 1,098 pages sold during the same period in 2006. This spring, USA Today announced plans to move its popular iPad application to a subscription model on July 4, but as of this writing, the app is still free via for download via the App Store. Last year, USA Today publisher David Hunke expressed regret that the newspaper decided to make its iPhone application available for free. "I'm not sure we realized what we had," Hunke said. "I think that's a value readers will be willing to pay for."

For more on the USA Today makeover:
- read this release

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