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There’s no way around it: Friday’s news that The Buffalo News will no longer print a Monday edition and will shift to six-days-a-week print, effective Nov. 3, was difficult to hear. It is sad, but not unexpected, news.

As print circulation continued to decline, The Buffalo Newspaper Guild figured the day would come when Lee Enterprises decided to no longer print seven days a week at its largest properties, including The Buffalo News. Lee had long ago reduced printing days at its smaller newspapers, as have many other media companies.

We’re disappointed Lee is giving our loyal print subscribers – who have stuck with us despite all the Lee-erected barriers to good customer service – only one month of notice for such a big change in their routines. It seems to be the latest mad dash from Lee to cut costs as fast as it can because its own executives once again botched the company’s financial projections and budgeting.

It’s true that this industry is changing. For instance, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is phasing out print Dec. 31 and moving to a fully digital publication. But there’s a key difference between what’s happening in Atlanta and what’s happening in Lee’s markets, such as Buffalo.

Whereas the Journal-Constitution’s owner, Cox Enterprises, invested a reported $150 million over five years into the publication’s digital products, Lee has given its markets a poorly-functioning, cookie-cutter website and mobile app that only frustrates readers and erodes the consumer experience online.

Quite simply, Lee has not properly invested in and dialed in its digital products to the point where its markets can successfully navigate a full transition from print to digital. And that’s a big problem as we start cutting print days and revenue.

Meanwhile, at a time when Lee wants its newsrooms to increase story, photo and video production, it is cutting newsroom budgets across the country. In Buffalo, the Guild expects to say goodbye to three to four newsroom members by the end of the year, either through voluntary resignation with severance or layoff.

Lee seems to be a company so desperate for cost savings that it is willing to slash anything and everything in its budget, regardless of whether those cuts endanger its future and its newspapers’ ability to cover their communities.

All of Lee’s markets, including Buffalo, deserve better than that.

The Buffalo Newspaper Guild and Buffalo History Museum are postponing a planned happy hour event this evening at the museum in light of serious concerns about public safety and direct threats that have warranted intervention by Buffalo police.

The initial event, “Drawing Support for Local Journalism,” was planned more than a month ago to launch the Guild’s public “Protect Local Journalism” campaign at a museum exhibit highlighting the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Adam Zyglis, before the exhibit’s closing.

The free, public and nonpartisan event was intended to promote a message about the need to protect this community by safeguarding a strong, local free press amid pressures being faced by news organizations across the country and here in Western New York.

However, public criticism of an editorial cartoon about Texas flooding published Tuesday in The Buffalo News, and malicious campaigning for individuals to protest and confront Zyglis at this event, has resulted in a series of death threats against Zyglis and a deluge of other direct threats to hurt him and his family.

We wholly condemn the individuals who have chosen to twist a positive, public event into an attempt to terrorize and silence Zyglis, spread fear among journalists and their supporters, and distort the mission of a free press.

Zyglis is an opinion cartoonist who puts his name to every cartoon he draws. While his work is separate and independent from the work of newsroom reporters and editors at The Buffalo News, the Buffalo Newspaper Guild will not stand for physical threats of harm against him and his family. Those who stoop to such cowardly, disgraceful and anonymous acts must be held accountable. The threats made against Zyglis are being forwarded to law enforcement.

Out of an abundance of caution and in the interests of public safety, however, we have decided to postpone the Buffalo History Museum happy hour event. It will be rescheduled. We thank the museum leadership and staff for graciously hosting this event and enduring the needless inconvenience recent events have placed upon them.

The Buffalo News remains the largest news organization in Western New York. Its staff, including members of the Buffalo Newspaper Guild, are dedicated to providing comprehensive and accurate information to the people who live and work here every day. The spiteful campaign to attack and harm Zyglis represents only one more example of the challenges we face as a community and the need to better communicate and support our vital, public role.

We encourage everyone to speak out against these hateful and illegal intimidation tactics and to support the Guild’s greater mission, found at www.ProtectLocalJournalism.com.