CUTBACK ROUNDUP.

Despite a general belief a business shouldn't make an important announcement on April Fool's Day or thereabouts, many publishers felt compelled to announce various kinds of cutbacks on or around that day last week. In no particular order:

*Mississippi's Clarksdale Press Register said on Wednesday that it is cutting back from five-day delivery to two, effective immediately. "Print journalism has changed tremendously," Ed Nichols, publisher of the Press Register, told a reporter at his paper. "Our product will continue to be the same quality featuring all local news, except when major events occur such as the 9-11 disaster." The 5500-circulation paper now publishes on Wednesdays and Fridays.

*Pennsylvania's Intelligencer Journal, a morning daily in Lancaster, and the New Era, the afternoon paper in Lancaster, said on Wednesday that they will combine into a single morning, six-day edition, starting June 29. The two papers, owned by Lancaster Newspapers Inc., said the combination would eliminate about 60 full-time and 40 part-time jobs. The Intelligencer Journal has an average weekday circulation of 45,693, while the New Era has an average weekday circulation of 39,192, as of Sept. 30, 2008. The two papers have separate news staffs but share the same space.

*Media General Inc. of Richmond, Va., said on Tuesday that it is changing its central Florida Spanish-language newspaper: chief among the changes is that it will now be known as Centro Tampa. The paper will also switch from broadsheet to tabloid. The weekly has a circulation of 41,000. The company also said that it had cut 65 more jobs at its Tampa operations and that it was closing some niche publications, including Flair magazine. It also said that area employees are now expected to take 13 furlough days -- three more than originally proposed -- before Sept. 30.

*The Boston Globe said on Friday that unions are expected to make $20 million in concessions annually within weeks or its parent, The New York Times Co., will shutter the operation. The Associated Press reported on Saturday that unions at the Globe met with company executives last week and that the concessions being sought include pay cuts, the end of life-time job guarantees and no more company contributions to pension funds.

*In Milwaukee, the Journal Sentinel is taking six percent off the pay of executives and managers and that they will also be forced to take 10 days of furloughs. The move doesn't effect unionized workers at the 212,156-circulation daily.

*In New York State, the Watertown Daily Times said on Saturday that it is imposing 10 days of furlough time in the next six months, with five days taken before July 1 and the rest before Oct. 1. The paper also said that it was suspending the company matching payment into 401(k) voluntary retirement accounts and that it would be closing its statehouse bureau.

*Managers at A.H. Belo Corp. of Dallas were told of pay cuts on Thursday, with Robert Decherd, the company's chairman, president and chief executive, whittling 20 percent off his pay. Other top-paid executives will lose 15 percent of their salaries, while those making between $150,000 and $225,000 will lose 10 percent and salaries between $102,500 and $149,999 will be lopped 7-1/2 percent. Salaries between $25,000 and $102,499 will have between 2-1/2 and five percent cut. The company said it would also suspend payment into its pension plan for 2009 and that the 2008 payment wouldn't be made until October.

But that didn't even include the worst news of the week: that honor falls to John Sturm, president and chief executive of the Newspaper Association of America, who foolishly chose to appear in a segment on the faux-news program "The Colbert Report" on the cable channel Comedy Central. As if newspapers didn't have a bad enough reputation already, Sturm's performance was -- in the word of a longtime NAA committee member -- "devastating."