Pruning the Portal   

The head of Pulitzer Inc.’s financially struggling Web site STLtoday, which includes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, resigns and 15 staffers are laid off.

Colette Hogan, the head of STLtoday, the Pulitzer Inc. Web site that includes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, resigns and 15 employees are laid off from a staff of 65. The site can't seem to make money even though it gets more than 3 million page views a week, Post-Dispatch Publisher and Pulitzer Vice President Terrance C.Z. Egger said in a memo to staff. "We're not at all disappointed in the brand or the audience," Egger tells AJR. "It was extremely disappointing to have to have any positions eliminated. We're completely committed to having a portal in St. Louis. We'd be foolish not to get a little bit smarter" about using content and advertising to boost revenues. He and a team that includes two of Hogan's former deputies, who are running STLtoday until her replacement is chosen, are picking the brains of publishing businesses that are making money on the Web. They hope to make the site profitable by the end of this year.