Don't panic yet: The Detroit Free Press isn't closing, but a major change is afoot

Don't panic yet: The Detroit Free Press isn't closing, but a major change is afoot | Crain's Detroit Business
The company will have to tell the U.S. Department of Justice, though, before it can do anything radical.

The Free Press and Detroit News are linked at the hip via a 25-year joint operating agreement signed in 2005 to handle as one business unit the advertising, printing and distribution of the papers.
Under a federal law from the 1970s aimed to preserving newspapers, owners have to inform the feds when significantly changing or terminating a Justice Department-approved JOA.
The Detroit JOA, according to its terms (I have a copy) can be dissolved starting in August 2015 if the newspapers are both unprofitable – what the document calls "newspaper operating losses" sustained by the partnership.