DETROIT — Michigan’s two largest newspapers were missing from front porches Monday as the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News began an era of reduced home delivery and announced a plan to eventually transmit their print editions to thousands of new electronic devices. The newspapers were hawked for free on sidewalks and streets for one day only to remind people that the News and Free Press are not going out of business but undergoing significant change at a time of vanishing ad revenue and a deep recession. The papers will continue to be printed and sold each day, but home delivery is limited to Thursday, Friday and Sunday, the biggest ad days of the week. Subscribers can see the exact print version online on any day, and free content is available at freep.com and detnews.com. Detroit Media Partnership, which runs the business side of the papers, also announced a plan to test 100 e-reader devices by summer, a thin, 9-ounce electronic slate to read the print editions. ‘You could see 20- to 30,000 of these devices in a short period of time,’ said David Hunke, Free Press publisher and chief executive of the partnership. […]