The bad economic news has been as persistent as winter weather in central New York. Each day seems to bring news of factory closures and layoffs. Unemployment is shooting higher each month. Corporate earnings reports are dismal.

In the midst of covering this recession, newspaper companies are also confronting the reality that we are not immune. In fact, as the industry works to remake itself amid shifting reader habits from print to online formats, this economic downturn has been especially difficult.

That's why the negative newspaper announcements have been so plentiful. We've seen companies announce mass layoffs, drastic reductions in the size of the paper and even the elimination of some publication days.

Fortunately for The Citizen and its family of media products, we've not been forced to such extremes. While we've been affected by this economy, we're performing reasonably well, especially compared with the industry as a whole.

With that said, though, we're clearly making some difficult cost-cutting choices. One of those decisions will go into effect with the Friday, Feb. 6 print edition, and readers will certainly notice.

On that day, we'll start printing the newspaper in two larger sections, rather than the three smaller sections we've typically had. Exceptions will take place on Thursdays and Sundays, when the current four-section format will remain in place.

The good news for readers is that the move will not result in a reduction of basic content. We're doing it to take advantage of some efficiencies that come with the way our printing press operates.

There still could be some days, depending on the amount of advertising that comes in, where we go back to the three-section format, but the typical organization of the paper will look like this:

• The front section will start off with the same mix of local and state news on pages A1, A3 and A5, the “Page Too” feature and the opinion page on A4. Lake Life, our features section, will shift to pages A6-A8 and A10, where it will share space with the weather report. Our obituaries and public records page will remain the inside back page of the front section, in most cases page A9.

• The second section will feature sports coverage on the first four pages, followed by the comics/advice/horoscope page on B5. Nation/World news will appear on pages B6 and B7 (which is actually an increase in space we typically have for this type of news). Classifieds will take up the final three pages of the second section.

Take this description and compare it with today's paper. You'll see that the total page counts are not changing, and all the content you have now will be there in the future. But it's a change nonetheless, and we didn't want to make it without an explanation.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns appear Tuesday in

The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net