Oakland county residents in Birmingham, West Bloomfield, Troy, Rochester and Southfield will no longer have a local, weekly paper, Michigan Pubic Radio reports.

Observer & Eccentric Newspapers, which is owned by Gannett, will stop publishing all five Eccentric editions on May 31 and lay off 44 workers.
 
In June the company will begin to publish a multi-community Sunday newspaper called the South Oakland Eccentric.

“These expense reductions are a direct effect of our challenging economy and changing media landscape,’’ Susan Rosiek, executive editor of the Observer & Eccentric/Mirror/Hometown Newspapers said on the company’s web site, “These decisions, as difficult as they are to execute and to accept, position the newspaper for the future – a future that includes multiple platforms of news and advertising.”