Cost cutting at The Age in Melbourne continues apace, with this memo to senior editors last week making its way to Crikey.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

The hardcopy delivery of overseas newspapers will end soon. This includes the supplements and magazines contained inside those newspapers.

One of the options I am looking at is to buy individual hardcopies from a newsagent who can print a pdf version at A3 size. This would be B&W on photocopy paper. There is still a fee per paper but this is much lower than the hardcopy fee as there are no freight charges. There are no archive or back issues available with this option. It’s only a 48-hour life span of the masthead.

Please send a reply message if you would like to identify a ‘wish list’ of the section/s you want retained. The costs will then be considered.

CRIKEY: There are two problems with this policy. One is the obvious difficulty it will pose for editors who no longer have access to overseas papers from which to steal so many of their best layout and story ideas. And what would happen if all The Age’s competitors adopted a similar approach and stopped buying rival publications?