'NY Times' Absorbing 'IHT' Website

The merging of the International Herald Tribune into The New York Times continues apace. The Paris-based paper -- recently rebranded as "The Global Edition of The New York Times -- is folding its standalone website into NYTimes.com, as expected. A new, "co-branded global edition home page" will arrive next spring.

In the meantime, according to a memo sent around yesterday, the reorganization "has forced some hard decisions about jobs at the IHT." The upshot: The Times Co. will "reassign and in some instances relocate individuals in Paris and Hong Kong whose positions will be affected."

Here's the memo (and hat tip to PaidContent.org):

To Our Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that our vision to become a global powerhouse news Web site is soon to become a reality. Next spring, NYTimes.com and IHT.com will combine forces to form a joint international presence that can deliver the scale, the user engagement and the resources we need to compete for readers and advertisers. The advantages are manifest: the digital expertise and resources of NYTimes.com, the international experience and voice of the IHT and the joint power of both newsrooms.

So what does this mean? Come launch, NYTimes.com will feature a Dynamic new co-branded global edition home page that will feature stories selected for international users. Regular NYTimes.com users will be able to opt-in to that new home page; the IHT.com url will also redirect there. We will also feature six new global section fronts, again chosen for international readers: business, travel, culture, sports, style and opinion. Those will be found alongside the standard NYTimes.com section fronts and also featured on the global edition homepage. All IHT content will now be published on the integrated site as well as archived and searchable on NYTimes.com

There is much work to be done in the coming days and weeks. Members of the IHT-NYT Web project team -- Victoria Shannon, Charlotte Gordon, Jen Hanks, Hayley Nelson and Dominique Piteux, and Jim Roberts -- will be in contact with many of you in the newsroom, in advertising sales, in marketing and in finance and IT for your help in shaping, finalizing and delivering this creative and innovative new global edition to the online marketplace. We want and need our best minds grappling with the issues and refining the details as the project moves from the planning stage into development and implementation.

There is no doubt that this integration project is a large and complex endeavour and it has forced some hard decisions about jobs at the IHT. IHT HR and others are working closely with New York colleagues to reassign and in some instances relocate individuals in Paris and Hong Kong whose positions will be affected next year. Good progress is being made.

When this project is completed, we will have an amazing international news site that showcases the IHT's extraordinary journalism to millions more readers and meets the rapidly changing needs and expectations OF our advertisers. Thanks for all your efforts in making this a reality.

Stephen & Vivian