National & International

Metro & State

| Birmingham -- Friday's edition of the Birmingham Post-Herald will be the newspaper's last. The owner of the afternoon daily, E-W Scripps, says the economics were --quote-- "no longer favorable" to keep publishing.

"The Post-Herald's talented and dedicated staff produces an excellent newspaper," says Richard A. Boehne, Scripps' executive vice president and head of the company's newspaper division, "but unfortunately the Birmingham market has made it clear it will no longer support an afternoon edition."

The company says it's developed a severance package for the Post-Herald's 43 editorial department employees.

The Post-Herald began as the daily morning newspaper when the Birmingham Post and the Age-Herald merged. As part of a joint operating agreement with the afternoon paper The Birmingham News, the two dailies switched cycles in 1996. Circulation plummeted.

Post-Herald editor and president Jim Willis tells WBHM's Steve Chiotakis it's been a heart-breaking day for employees. And writers are putting together the paper's "obituary" for Friday.

The Post-Herald's demise is no surprise to Michael Hoyt, the executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. He says newspaper circulation is down all over the country and afternoon papers have been taking a particularly hard hit.

The Post-Herald's been publishing under its current banner since 1950.