Horne to readers: "Please don’t credit our decisions to greed."

Terry Horne, president and publisher of The Orange County Register, responded to readers unhappy with the newspaper's recent changes.
Earlier this month, the paper announced it would consolidate its business news coverage – including the Marketplace section and Business Monday – inside the main “News” section.
The story detailing the changes prompted almost 100 responses from readers.
"I was unhappy when you cut the number of funds listed in your paper. Now you are going to cut even more," Marna Reames wrote. "I have been a subscriber of you paper for over thirty years, but if you proceed with your plans, I will cancel my subscription and find another newspaper that better fits my needs."
Horne responded to readers by telling them the Register is under economic distress. He said less than 15 percent of revenue of a newspaper comes from subscriptions and that more than 85 percent comes from advertising. And that all this trouble in the newspaper industry is here as a recession looms.
Here's an excerpt from Horne's comments:

Please don’t credit our decisions to greed. The family ownership has agreed to accept dramatically lower performance, both last year and in our projected 2008 business year. They have refused to force management to take some of the more drastic cost-cutting steps taken by many publically owned newspaper companies.
We will work our way through this down period and when business gets better we will again expand the amount of space we give to news. And I’m sure editors will weigh carefully what content to add back to the Register. Your comments are duly noted.