NEW ORLEANS (AP) — NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune reports that the Times-Picayune pressroom will close in late 2015 or early 2016, and the newspaper will be printed in Mobile, Alabama.
ACS Louisiana General Manager Ray Masset says the move will eliminate 100 jobs at his company, which prints and packages the newspaper.
NOLA Media Group, which operates the website and publishes the newspaper, says news and ad sales staffs will remain the same.
Its news staff of 165 includes 95 reporters. Fifty-seven freelancers also contribute to the website and newspaper.
The New Orleans plant was built in 1968 and the one in Mobile in 2002. It prints The Press-Register 144 miles east of New Orleans.
Masset says the newer plant will cut costs, improve efficiency and allow much better reproduction and color.
Ricky Mathews, President of NOLA Media Group, which operates NOLA.com and publishes The Times-Picayune, said the savings will allow greater investment in news and sales. The website and newspaper work out of a downtown high-rise at the foot of Canal Street.
Masset says ACS Louisiana will renovate and expand offices in suburban Metairie, where 29 journalists design, copy edit and lay out the pages of the newspaper and its weekly and monthly sections.
He says people whose jobs are eliminated will be offered severance pay and will be able to apply for positions at other affiliated properties.
Massett says the Howard Avenue property may be donated to a nonprofit institution.
