More local news comes from newspapers and their websites than from television, radio or online-only news sources, ABC News reports.

A study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at one week of local news reporting across 53 media outlets in Baltimore during July last year. It found that for six major stories, 61% of original reporting or new information came from newspapers and their websites. By contrast, 28% came from local television stations and their websites, 7% for radio stations and 4% for online-only publications.

Although local television produced slightly more content than newspapers, fewer of the stations' stories contained original reporting. Content often included information obtained from other media, primarily newspapers.

"This study does suggest that if newspapers were to disappear, what would be left to aggregate?" director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism Tom Rosenstiel said.

It's not all rosy for newspapers, though. Falling advertising revenue and staff cuts over the last decade have meant that local newspapers aren't covering stories in as much depth or producing as much content as they did in the days before online news, according to the study.

Towards the end of last year, Rupert Murdoch, head of News International, spoke out against news aggregators. In an interview with Sky News Australia, he condemned the likes of Google as nothing more than "thieves", intent on stealing content from his newspaper's websites for their own benefit. The media mogul has long wielded threats of removing all News International articles from search indexes and implementing stringent paywalls around all his websites by the end of 2010.

It's only January, but Murdoch has already set about putting his plans into action: On Friday, the Guardian reported that News International is to prevent the aggregator NewsNow.co.uk from linking to content found on the Times Online website, by changing its search engine settings via the robots.txt protocol.

NewsNow claims to be the UK's largest news aggregator, reportedly welcoming two million visitors a month. Of the move, NewsNow's managing director and chairman, Struan Bartlett, commented:

It's been a week of managerial announcements, with the Associated Press announcing the new managers of its Social Network Center and its News Center. The latest announcement is from the Star Tribune in Minneapolis-St. Paul, which has named Michael Klingensmith as its new publisher.

As a former Time Inc. executive, Klingensmith has worked as general manager of Time magazine, president of Sports Illustrated and founding publisher of Entertainment Weekly. Most recently he was a managing director of AdMedia Partners.

He replaces Chris Harte, who stepped down when the Star Tribune was in bankruptcy protection last year.

Klingensmith said he expected his new position to be difficult but fascinating.

"I really think there's nothing more important in the business right now than reformulating the business model for some of these media properties that are really critically important to communities - and to this community, one that I care about deeply," he told the Star Tribune. "Democracy depends on people having good information and I think this is really an important job."

Two newspaper printing plants, one each in the US and the UK, are set to close, and substantial layoffs are expected to follow.

In the UK, Harmsworth Printing has begun a 30-day consultation over closing its Plymouth printing plant. If the plant is closed, 90 staff could be lost, although the company has said it would try to find jobs for them elsewhere in the organisation.

The closure will not be seen as a surprise. Harmsworth closed three of its printing plants last year. And if this closure goes ahead, a number of papers, including the Exeter Express & Echo, will be printed at other plants. Most are expected to move to the Didcot plant.

Meanwhile, in the US, the Los Angeles Times has announced that it will close its Orange County printing facility from next month in order to cut costs. Eighty jobs will be lost in the process.

Closing the plant will mean that editorial deadlines will fall at an earlier time. To make up for this, The Times will publish a new section, LATExtra, with late-breaking news. It will close the standalone Monday business section, though, in another effort to cut expenditure.

This news comes as The Times prepares to launch a new local news website for Orange County. Let's hope it doesn't suffer a similar fate.

Newspaper readers in France have been disrupted this week, after distribution company Presstalis blocked the distribution of papers to different parts of the country two days in a row. In response to the action, one newspaper has refused to publish an edition today.

It was northern France and part of central France that went without their national daily newspapers on Wednesday. Papers were distributed normally in the east, west and south. Le Monde made a PDF version of that day's paper available for free on its website.

On Thursday, distribution was interrupted in the east and south of the country. By contrast, the north of France, including Paris, received its newspapers mostly as normal. Only Le Figaro and France Soir suffered a smaller distribution than normal in this area.

In response, France Soir decided not to publish a Friday edition. The paper's director of communications Cyrille Benoist said that the decision was both symbolic and collective. "It's a painful decision," he said, "that we wished to make, to respond to the absurd with the absurd."

More than 1,300 publishers have now partnered with Journalism Online, and the paid content network will begin testing in coming weeks, Steve Brill, the group's founder, told minonline today.

However, the group has changed its tune a bit since it began, with Brill telling minonline that "We are refusing to launch pay walls where you say to first-time visitors 'pay or go away,'" and will instead give visitors access to 10 to 15 articles for free before asking for payment. Journalism Online, launched in April 2009 by Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindrey, hopes regular visitors will pay for complete access, while one-time or infrequent visitors won't be barred.

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A new local news website, the Orange County Local News Network, will be launched next month, paidContent reports. The U.S. Local News Network and the Los Angeles Times Media Group will join forces to launch the website, and will cross-sell advertising and share content.

The LA Times Media Group already owns several local weekly newspapers in Orange County, including the Huntington Beach Independent and the Coastline Pilot. The new website will compete with another regional newspaper, the Orange County Register.

The Orange County Local News Network will be staffed by four full-time reporters, working out of the Times' office, and 15 freelancers.

Although the financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed, it is understood that the Times will not own a stake in the website, and will instead generate revenue from its advertising.

The U.S. Local News Network already has two local sites, the San Diego News Network and the Southwest Riverside Network, with plans to establish another 40 in cities across the US in the next two years.

The Kitanippon Shimbun has closed its evening edition and will now publish a morning edition only, NSK News Bulletin reports.

Plans are in place to redesign its morning edition, including moving some content from the defunct evening edition to the morning one. The website will also get a makeover, adding more content and featuring the latest news ahead of the print edition.

The company's announcement of the closure focused on recent changes in the media environment and the rise of the internet as a source of news. "In particular, the business environment surrounding the publication of our evening edition is becoming increasingly harsh, and we have concluded that we can no longer best meet the diverse needs of our readers through the continued publication of an evening edition," the announcement said.

This closure does not appear to be a surprise. September figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation showed that the morning edition had a circulation of 248,636 copies, while the evening edition distributed only 31,939. Three other Japanese dailies closed their evening editions last year to go morning-only. And closures and cutbacks are not infrequent for English-language newspapers.

The per-copy price for the print edition of the Toyama Prefecture-based paper will stay the same, as will the monthly subscription price, set at 2,987 yen (US $32).

Independent Newspapers South Africa has launched an 'E-dition', an online version of its printed newspapers that keeps the same format and layout as the print edition. This is in addition to the papers' standard news websites.

It also includes interactive radio and instant translation functions, so readers can listen to the articles in 11 languages. The editions can be downloaded for offline reading and are optimised for reading on smart phones. Bookmarking and search functions are also included.

The E-ditions will be available by subscription. A free seven-day trial is offered, and rates thereafter vary between newspapers. For The Star, for example, they range from 100 rand (US $13.50) for one month, up to 1137.50 rand (US $153.67) for twelve months, the same price as a yearly print subscription. For The Argus, meanwhile, one month costs R 88.40 (US $11.95) and one year costs R 1060.80 (US $143.30), which is also the same price as a yearly subscription to the print version.

The buzz keeps growing and growing around tablets - electronic devices with a touch-screen interface, e-reader capabilities, as well as web browsing among others.

Rumors about Apple's tablet, or the iSlate, as it is now being called, have been gaining momentum as the elusive and innovative device that is supposed to look like a bigger version of Apple's iPhone, prepares to launch early this year.

Several other big high-tech players have also lined up to present their own versions of the slate. Just this last Wednesday, Microsoft unveiled the Hewlett-Packard yet to be named tablet at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, highlighted an upcoming slate computer from H.P. set to ship this year in an on-stage demo. As The New York Times reports, the device appeared to have a 10-inch and 12-inch screen and had a copy of "Twilight" loaded up on the display to show off its e-reading function. The H.P. device was running Amazon.com's Kindle software for P.C.s but outdid the Kindle by providing a full-color display. Microsoft and H.P.'s slate had a touch-screen and full multimedia support.

Tablets vs. E-Readers

One of the reasons readers are trading online for print that is rarely discussed is that newspaper stories are too long, while online articles are more to-the-point, Michael Kinsley argues in the Atlantic this week.

His reasoning? "Context," which newspapers pride themselves on providing, has become "an invitation to hype," causing readers to go elsewhere to just get the facts. Shorter, more concise articles could cause a boost in print sales, but existing mandatory newsroom rules to give more context may be hurting print, he writes in his column.

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