After 174 years, the last edition of the News rolled off the presses Thursday morning as Michigan's fifth-largest city started to make the transition to a new era of journalism.

Because of a steep decline in advertising revenue and readers' shift toward the Internet, the News' owner, Advance Publications, is one of several media companies that are discarding the old model of print journalism in favor of a new digital one.

Advance is betting that News readers will migrate to its new online news site it called AnnArbor.com. The Web site launches today with a small editorial staff equipped with video cameras and will publish print editions on Thursdays and Fridays.

"This is about changing the delivery mechanism for local journalism," said Laurel Champion, the News' publisher and the executive vice president of AnnArbor.com."