LOS ANGELES : The Los Angeles Times is to axe 250 jobs across the company as part of a cost-cutting drive to bring expenditure into line with falling revenues, the newspaper reported on Thursday.

The Times said the cuts would include the loss of 150 editorial positions and would also see the newspaper's pagination shrink by 15 percent each week.

Times editor Russ Stanton said in a memo to staff reported by the paper on Friday that the cuts reflected the "paradox" of the Internet revolution.

"Thanks to the Internet, we have more readers for our great journalism than at any time in our history. But also thanks to the Internet, our advertisers have more choices, and we have less money," Stanton wrote.

Stanton also said the paper's advertising revenues had suffered a downturn amid because of the free-falling California housing market, traditionally a strong source of income.

Times Publisher David Hiller said cuts would help the paper "get to where we need to be for the long term.

"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.

The newsroom job losses would leave the Times' print and online operations with a combined editorial staff of around 700.

The cuts are the latest in a series that has reduced the Times editorial staff from it's 2001 level of nearly 1,200. - AFP/de