| The Los Angeles Times, the city's leading newspaper, | | | | section, with a radical change in its presentation. |
| has suffered from circulation numbers that have | | | | In 2006, The Times closed its San Fernando Valley |
| decreased since the mid-1990s. It has not been able to | | | | printing press, leaving such operations in neighboring |
| pass the one million mark, a milestone easily surpassed | | | | Orange County. Also in 2006, the paper announced its |
| in earlier decades. The circulation drop may be a side | | | | circulation down 5.3 percent from 2005. The Times's |
| effect of a succession of short-lived editors. | | | | loss of circulation is the greatest out of the top ten |
| Other possible reasons for the circulation drop include | | | | newspapers in the U.S. Despite this recent circulation |
| an increase in cost, from 25 cents to 50 cents, or in | | | | decline, many in the newspaper industry have lauded |
| the rise in readers preferring to read the Web edition. | | | | the newspaper's effort to augment its reliance on |
| A leading editor said that the decrease was an | | | | building up its individually-paid circulation base. |
| industry-wide issue that the paper had to deal with by | | | | In other negative news, the credibility of the |
| uploading more content online and maintaining breaking | | | | newspaper suffered greatly when it was shown in |
| news there. One prominent journalist attributed the | | | | 1999 that a revenue-sharing arrangement was in place |
| circulation decrease to the lack of local coverage | | | | between it and Staples Center in the creation of a |
| featuring news items of interest to working people and | | | | magazine about the establishment of the sports arena. |
| organized labor. | | | | The magazine's editors and writers were not made |
| The paper's content and design style has been | | | | aware of the arrangement, which broke the separation |
| revisited several times recently in attempts to help | | | | between advertising and journalistic functions at U.S. |
| increase circulation. In 2000, a major change more | | | | newspapers. The Times has also come under scrutiny |
| closely organized the news sections and changed the | | | | for its decision to drop the weekday edition of the |
| Local section to the California section, with more | | | | Garfield comic strip in 2005, in favor of a hipper comic |
| detailed coverage. Another major change in 2005 had | | | | strip, while keeping the Sunday edition. Garfield was |
| the Sunday Opinion section retitled the Sunday Current | | | | dropped altogether shortly after that. |