MEDIAware, PR Newswire’s Audience Research Department newsletter, featuring media news and job changes in the last month, is now available. Here is a sampling of this month’s edition:

Advance Publications and Newhouse Newspapers recently announced four major papers will discontinue daily publication and staff cuts will be made in an effort to cut costs and focus on online content. The Times-Picayune (http://www.nola.com/t-p/) in News Orleans, The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and the Press-Register, all in Alabama, will be published three days a week on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. With this change New Orleans becomes the largest city in the U.S. without a daily published newspaper.

Quartz is coming from the Atlantic Media group. Quartz is a business publication designed for tablets, smart phones and all digital formats. It is tentatively scheduled to begin late this year with former Wall Street Journal-ist Kevin Delaney as Editor-in-Chief and Chris Batty as the Publisher. Former Economist Media Editor Gideon Lichfield is in charge of news content. Zach Seward has also been hired as Senior Editor. The web site is: http://qz.com and they will be tweeting: https://twitter.com/quartznews.

Beth Macy, a Reporter at The Roanoke Times, is taking a year sabbatical from the newspaper to concentrate on a book titled “Factory Man” based on articles she wrote earlier this year on the battle to fight China furniture imports by furniture company leader John D. Bassett III. You can read her series here: http://www.roanoke.com/multimedia/pickingup/still-making-it-in-america/ Beth also tweets here: https://twitter.com/papergirlmacy

Larry Platt has resigned as Editor at the Philadelphia Daily News. He lasted 16 months. Before this brief stint Platt was Editor of Philadelphia Magazine. This has opened the door for Michael Days (mdays@phillynews.com) to return as Editor. Michael had been working as Managing Editor at sister publication The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philly.com includes content from both newspapers: http://www.philly.com

Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com) Columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave has taken leave after being accused of plagiarism. His weekly columns also appear on UPI (http://www.upi.com). Check out the whole story here: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/05/22/washington-times-columnist-arnaud-de-borchgrave-takes-leave-amid-plagiarism-probe/

The sports team recently lost their roster spots at USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com). Horse Racing veteran Reporter Tom Pedulla, Sports Blogger Tom Weir, Basketball Reporter J. Michael Falgoust, Auto Reporter Gary Graves Sports Biz Media Reporter Michael McCarthy were all let go.

Katie Couric is the new Host of “Katie’s Take”, a weekly digital program on Yahoo. (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/katies-take-abc-news/) “Katie’s Take” covers topics including wellness, parenting, nutrition and health.  Couric will also be hosting a new syndicated daytime talk show called “Katie”. The show is set to premiere on September 10th and will be distributed by Disney-ABC Domestic Television. Couric and Jeff Zucker are the Executive Producers.  You can follow Katie on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/katiecouric or facebook at  http://www.facebook.com/katieshow

It’s not over until the Fat Lady Sings: Talk about fast work — less than a day after the Metropolitan Opera Guild announced it would no longer include reviews of Metropolitan Opera productions in its magazine, Opera News (http://www.operanews.com), the readership spoke. And now the reviews will remain. The Opera News was born in May 1936 and remains a healthy monthly with more than 100,000 subscribers. The Metropolitan Opera Guild is an affiliate of the Metropolitan Opera but has different leadership.  They also “sing” about opera here: https://twitter.com/operanews

He has been on CBS. He has been on NBC. Now Bryant Gumbel will be on ABC as he guest hosts on “Live! With Kelly” in early June. Gumbel will appear on the program on the 4th and 5th. Since Regis Philbin’s retirement, the show has had a revolving door of guest co-hosts. The network has yet to decide on a permanent replacement for Philbin.

The Boston Globe could be up for sale again. The New York Times Company tried selling the paper three years ago but was unsuccessful in finding a deal. The possibility of selling the paper was revisited again last year, although, CEO Janet Robinson wanted to wait in hopes that the launch of the Globe’s new pay wall would improve its sales.

You can view the whole June Issue here: http://www.prnewswire.com/knowledge-center/mediaware/ And all the latest media changes by region here: http://www.prnewswire.com/knowledge-center/mediaware/June2012AgilityUpdatesbyRegion.html