NYT journalists leave Paris

PARIS: The editorial production room of the International New York Times, a Parisian fixture for nearly 130 years, closed on Tuesday, staff said.

Editorial production of the international version of the New York Times in Paris stopped a few days ago under a plan that the owners announced in April. The publication has appeared under various titles over the course of its long history, most recently as the International Herald Tribune, which it dropped in 2013.

One Paris-based editor, who asked not to be named, told AFP on Wednesday: "We had a party with champagne here last night." Editing and pre-press print production of the paper will be transferred to New York and Hong Kong.

The Paris news bureau of the New York Times and an advertising department will remain in the French capital. Pascal Lebegue, a French union representative for the paper, said 69 of the 113 jobs in Paris would be lost. "It was the presence in Paris of the journalists who wrote it which made the newspaper what it was. Now they are based in New York," Lebegue said.

The International Herald Tribune, the only international newspaper in English produced in Paris, first appeared in 1887 as the Paris Herald, aimed at American expatriates. When its first owners, the New York Herald, shut in 1966, the New York Times and the Washington Post took over part ownership and from 1991 they had a 50-50 share in the newspaper.

The New York Times eventually took full ownership in 2003 and in 2013 renamed it International New York Times. When the plan to shut the editorial offices in Paris was announced, editors said in a memo to staff: "Only by moving ahead with this proposal can we assure our ability to maintain our international print presence for the coming years and do so in a way that will best serve our international readers."