During the mid-2000s, Belo made several rounds of staff cuts at the Morning News, reducing the size of the paper’s newsroom by half over five years. In late 2009, saying newspapers had “cut too far,” Moroney announced his intentions to hire more journalists. He also announced plans to charge more for the paper’s print product; as of early 2011, a seven-day subscription cost $383 per year, one of the highest rates in the United States. The paper hired The Modellers, a Utah market research firm, to determine how much the newspaper could increase prices without damaging overall circulation revenues.

A.H. Belo has consistently lost money since it split off from Belo and went public in 2008. In May 2011, the company announced it would once again begin issuing a dividend to shareholders, despite a net loss of $6.7 million in the first quarter of the year.

The paper has won several major awards, including three Pulitzer Prizes in the past six years. The Morning News also was an early adopter of blogging, becoming one of the first papers to run an editorial board blog in 2003.

Along with Briefing, the Morning News and A.H. Belo have launched a number of publications aimed at various demographics of readers, including a Spanish-language newspaper, Al Dia, and Quick, a newspaper aimed at younger readers that was initially a free daily but has since become a weekly. The paper also runs a reader-driven network of hyperlocal sites called neighborsgo.

In December 2009, some of the Morning News news section editors began reporting to sales managers in a company-wide reorganization. Reaction to the move was mixed, with some raising concerns about the ethics of integrating ad sales and news content. Morning News executives stressed the change would not affect the integrity of the paper’s news content.