Dear Team,

Advance Publications' The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., is struggling to find $10 million to slash from its budget because many of its key retail advertisers have filed for bankruptcy or cut their spending.  The Star-Ledger still promises to honor its famous handbook pledge not to lay off any of its nonunion employees due to a bad turn in the economy.  The Star-Ledger also canceled its Christmas party, has closed a small satellite office in Newark, is offering buyouts to selected employees, and will decrease the amounts of its annual raises and bonuses.  The Star-Ledger has a  410,547-weekday-circulation newspaper and about 132,449 MT in newsprint consumption.  The carnage continues as the loss of advertising dollars plagues newspapers.
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The Deseret News in Salt Lake City is already getting ready to temporarily publish an a.m. edition during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. The evening newspaper would publish an additional 10,000 copies of a morning edition for single-copy customers Feb. 8-24.  Potentially good news for newsprint consumption...
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Media baron Rupert Murdoch has become a father for the fifth time. Murdoch, 70, the chairman and chief executive of News Corp., married Deng, 33, in 1999 after divorcing his second wife. He has four adult children from that marriage. News Corp. owns the Fox Network and New York Post, as well as extensive newspaper stables in Australia and Britain.  Just think, the newborn's maternal grandfather could be younger than her father...

Ayesha