In case you haven't heard, USA Today is firing 10 percent of its workforce. Unfortunately for the once-largest print newspaper in the country, its advertising sales have dropped 50 percent since 2006 and it has lost nearly 25 percent of its readership since 2007. (As a result, the Wall Street Journal recently overtook USA Today as the U.S.' largest paper by circulation.)

Whew! Not so good.

These newspaper layoff stories are a dime-a-dozen nowadays and not really the point of this blog entry. What's unique about this story though is the proposed reordering of the newspaper by the organization's management. This is not your run-of-the-mill cut-back, but rather a fundamental restructuring of the newsroom. Instead of editors who focus on sections of the paper, the newsroom will be focused around “content rings” supervised by editors. These hubs for fresh material will be charged with generating content that will be distributed across many of USA Today's channels – not just the print edition, but mobile and Web as well.

Who knows if this will work. But it's the first comprehensive attempt by a major daily to stabilize itself while ad revenues continue to dwindle, dribbling forth from what's left of the old-media well. And with Rupert Murdoch’s infamous “pay wall” in place and still not working at the WSJ, the old-media barons are still left pining for a better, more innovative business model.

It'll be tough to do so long as everyone else’s content remains free.

[via Yahoo! Finance]