Financial Times to axe sports coverage

THE Financial Times is dropping sports coverage and cutting its page count as part of a cost-cutting drive.
An FT spokesman said the Saturday sports page would be dropped from 14 February as "part of a strategy to focus on core strengths" of news and business.
"We will, of course, continue to cover the business of sport, as well as major sporting events and Simon Kuper's weekly column will also be moving to a new home," he added.
The FT is to reduce pagination in the UK edition by two pages, removing a page on world stock markets in addition to the sports page. The print edition is to retain the world top 500 stocks but the rest will go online.
In its four other editions – the US, Asia, Europe and the Middle East – pagination will not fall and the sports page will be replaced with other content.
The newspaper invested in sports coverage in the 1990s but has cut back under the editorship of Lionel Barber. Sports reporting has been limited to Saturdays since an April 2007 redesign.
The FT refused to confirm how the move would affect staff, but the paper acknowledged it would reduce its commissions from freelance contributors, who include Huw Richards, Graham Otway and Pat Butcher.
Last month, the Pearson-owned newspaper announced it was planning to make 80 job cuts, including 20 journalists. The National Union of Journalists has attacked Pearson for planning compulsory redundancies at the FT, despite also announcing its financial results would beat expectations.

Source: Guardian.co.uk