The Press: Paper Pinch

French newspapers have been cut to one tabloid-sized page a day. Britain’s great dailies now report the news in four to ten pages. U.S. newspapers, paper-pinched but far less so, have kept a fairly sleek look by holding down new subscriptions, boiling some of the fat out of their features, saying a reluctant no to many advertisers. Last week, facing a 5% cut in newsprint inventories for the next quarter, some U.S. newspapers were driven to sterner measures:

¶ Pensacola’s morning Journal and evening News went tabloid for the month of March, cut out all street sales.

¶ Phoenix’s jointly-owned Arizona-Republic and Gazette dropped to tabloid size on Tuesdays and Saturdays, to save enough paper to be standard-sized the rest of the week. The tab editions will carry no display ads except for movies and churches.