RPT-UPDATE 2-L.A. Times to cut 250 jobs, 150 in editorial

(Repeats to more subscribers) (Updates with Times planning redesign, combined newsrooms)

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES, July 2 (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Times will slash 250 jobs, including 150 in the newsroom, and trim its published pages by 15 percent in an effort to save money in the face of declining revenues, the newspaper said on Wednesday.

The cuts are the latest in a series for the Times, which will have whittled its newsroom from nearly 1,200 reporters in 2000 to just over 700 as circulation and advertising revenues have faded in the face of competition from the Internet.

Most of the business-side positions had already been eliminated and the editorial jobs will be gone by Labor Day, in time for the Times to combine its print and Web newsrooms, the newspaper said.

The Times also intends to roll out new redesigned versions of both its print and Web editions.

"These moves will be difficult and painful," Editor Russ Stanton said in a memo to the staff. "But it is absolutely crucial that as we move through this process, we must maintain our ambition and our determination to produce the highest-quality journalism in print and online, every day."

The Times said in a separate story on the website that the editorial cuts amounted to about 17 percent of the staff. Publisher David Hiller told the paper that the goal of the cutbacks was long-term survival.

"We want to get ahead of the economy that's been rolling down on us and get to a size that will be sustainable," Hiller said, adding that he expected the downturn to "bottom out" by early 2009.