Now they know how the business editors at other papers feel

Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times reports that the Times, unlike other metro dailies, plans to fold its sports and metro sections into other sections of the paper, but keep its standalone business section.

Perez-Pena writes, “The Metro report will become part of the newspaper’s A section, which also contains the International and National reports, and the Editorial and Op-Ed pages, on Mondays through Saturdays, and possibly on Sundays, as well.

“The Sports report will go into the section that begins with Business Day, on Tuesdays through Fridays, while Sports will remain a separate section on weekends and on Mondays.

“Combining sections, which will take effect on Monday, Oct. 6, will not reduce the number of pages devoted to the Metro and Sports reports, the executives said.

“It will take away some of the prominence of a stand-alone section, the editors concede, but they argue that the physical arrangement of the paper matters less in an age when a growing proportion of its audience is online. While they said that there was some concern that putting New York-centric reporting deep inside other sections would suggest that the paper was losing interest in local news and local readers, research showed that readers care more about the content than its placement.”

Read more here.