Des Moines | Former circulation VP Bell has died

Rick Bell started his career carrying newspapers for The Olympian in Washington at the age of 10 and worked his way up to vice president over circulation at The Des Moines Register.

Bell, 49, died yesterday at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, the Register is now reporting; his obituary doesn't include a cause of death.

A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday at the First Assembly of God Church, 1700 W. Second Ave., Indianola, Iowa, according to the newspaper.

Related: read Overton Funeral Home's online memorial guest book.

Detroit leads historic switch closer to 100% digital

[New look: A slimmer Free Press, sold only in racks and stores]

After more than three months' planning, the Gannett-controlled Detroit newspapers today reduced home delivery to just three days popular with advertisers: Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. The rest of the week, customers of the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News are encouraged to go to the papers' websites, or to buy new slimmer print versions, also debuting today, at retail locations. "They are accelerating greatly the print-to-digital transformation, and they are taking a great chance there," media analyst Ken Doctor of Outsell Inc. told the Associated Press.

Freep Editor Paul Anger said today switch "marks the start of a new era" for delivering news. "We're still printing newspapers every day," Anger told readers in a note, "we're putting replicas of Free Press pages online at digitalfreepress.com -- and we're putting more emphasis on digital ways of getting information to you, including right here at freep.com. That means freep.com has more updates than ever, and we're working to make response times faster. It means you can view more videos from our Emmy-award winning staff, get more news on your mobile device at m.freep.com, sign up for E-Newsletters, follow us at twitter.com/freep or twitter.com/freepautos or twitter.com/freepsports, visit our Facebook page, join the conversations at momslikeme.com, make plans for food and fun at Detroit.metromix.com, find a job or a car or a better buy at our careerbuilder.com, cars.com or shoplocal.com."

The papers are published by the Detroit Media Partnership, a joint operating agency owned by Gannett and MediaNews Group. GCI owned the News for 20 years until 2005, when it sold the paper to MediaNews in a three-way deal with Knight Ridder. Gannett got Knight's Freep, Florida's Tallahassee Democrat, and "cash consideration'' the companies did not disclose. Knight got Gannett's Idaho Statesman, plus two Washington state dailies: The Olympian, and The Bellingham Herald. Most of Knight was subsequently merged into McClatchy Co.

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