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The paper is cutting pay by 5% for non-unionised staff at its flagship paper and other papers owned by the group and is seeking similar concessions from unionised employees and job cuts have not been ruled out.

Bill Keller, executive editor, wrote to staff on Thursday: "The hope and expectation remain that the pay cuts and the spending cuts outlined above will get us through the year without the need for other significant reductions.

Last week the New York Times Company threatened to close the loss-making Boston Globe if it does not find ways to cut costs.

In the memo Keller said that he does not know how the Globe's situation will be resolved.

Keller wrote: "As I have said on past occasions, there is nothing sacrosanct about the current size of the newsroom, but if the day comes when we decide to undertake a cut in the staff, it should be driven not by the temporary crisis of a recession, but by a careful calculation of our long-term priorities."

The affected sections, according to an article on the New York Times website, include:

• The Escapes travel section, published on Fridays.
• Sunday sections that only readers in the New York metropolitan area receive.
• City and regional sections named for New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut.

The paper said that those Sunday sections would disappear and The New York Times would create a new Sunday section combining some elements of them with features about New York City and the region.

Fashion has also been hit and from May 10, the New York Times Magazine will no longer contain a regular fashion layout.

Fashion reporting and photography will continue every few weeks, and in the weekly Sunday and Thursday Styles sections.

The guide to each day's newspaper, currently printed on the second, third and fourth pages of the first section, will be consolidated into a single page.

The cuts at the New York Times came as USA Today Owner Gannett revealed a drop of nearly 60% in net income.

It said it saw no immediate signs of improvement from the advertising downturn and that visibility was extremely limited.

The publisher said ad revenue fell 28% at its US papers as total revenue declined nearly 18% to $1.4bn. Net income sank to $77.4m.

Worse was that online revenue fell 20% at its US newspapers, excluding USA Today.

The flagship USA Today saw ad revenues fall by a third as it sold 527 ad pages in the first quarter compared to 826 in the same period a year ago.

Craig Dubow, Gannett chief executive, said: ""I would suggest at this point that April continues to have a very, very limited view as to what we are seeing at this point."

Ad revenues at Newsquest, Gannett's UK regional newspaper arm, fell by 38.7% overall and classified ad revenues fell by 45.1%.

The results came as speculation surfaced again that Gannett could sell its UK business, which includes such titles as the Brighton Argus, the Northern Echo and the Herald in Glasgow.

Blog posts of the newspaper crises

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