Emphasizing that this is an innovative step forward, not a cost-cutting measure, Patriot-News Publisher John Kirkpatrick spent about 45 minutes with his staff today, answering pointed questions about the future of the news organization as it moves toward changing its model to a heavy focus online and a print product only three days a week.

He'll now go to the phones and talk to advertisers about the changes that will be put into motion now and take effect by January.

The Patriot-News and its website, PennLive.com, will no longer be two companies. They will merge into PA Media Group, which will also include the advertising staff. Both of the companies will be owned by Advance Publications.

Inevitably, there will be cuts in staff. But new positions will also open, and key players — Pulitzer Prize-winning editors Cate Barron and Mike Feeley — will continue to be in charge of content.

Almost as many pages of print — to include comics, the weekly local, sports and entertainment sections — will still go through the presses each week and be delivered on newsstands and front porches.

The pages will simply be condensed to three days of larger papers, Kirkpatrick said.

Other than Sunday, the days that the presses will run are not yet determined.

But the online operation will move to a 24-7 model.

There are still unknowns. The price of the paper is one of them.

But no paywall at PennLive.com is in the immediate future, he said.

Within a month, Kirkpatrick said he hopes to have a new organizational chart and personnel changes worked out.

"We're doing this to secure our future," he told the staff. "This gives us the chance to prosper. ... But, it's not for the faint of heart."

Citing other attempts to thwart the decline in revenue and cuts that have plagued the newspaper industry in the last decade, Kirkpatrick said his biggest fear was to have to end his career managing a decline.

Other things didn't work, he said.

We're trying something new.

While The Patriot-News circulation has steadily declined from 176,000 copies in 1992 to 118,000 today, PennLive.com has exploded.

It was even more evident in the last year, with around-the-clock coverage of historic flooding, the Harrisburg debt crisis and the Jerry Sandusky scandal. PennLive's audience grew 80 percent, and it's the 12th-most popular website in the nation, measured by market penetration

Similar changes are about to go into effect at another Newhouse newspaper in New Orleans.

The changes at The Times-Picayune were met with harsh opposition from community leaders who believe the city needs a daily newspaper as it continues to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

But factors are different in Harrisburg.

The mood of the newsroom was noticeably accepting as the announcement was made. Some reporters even joked that they'll still get to write big, long stories.

Kirkpatrick, who kept to his theme that this change was about saving the future, not saving money, ended his speech anecdotally.

Kodak, he told staffers, was the first company to develop the digital camera. But they abandoned the technology and let pride and nostalgia and devotion to film guide them, he said.

Now they are a shell of a company.

IBM, by comparison, faced a similar dilemma when PCs were exploding. The company saw a future in consulting and took a risk, he said.

"IBM made a painful change and ended up leading the market. Even though they had a product touching millions and making tons of money, they had to change," he told the staff.

"Kodak is in bankruptcy, IBM is changing the world. We all see the future and know what the future is. We are in a position to choose."