NEW YORK — Lee Enterprises Inc., struggling like all other newspaper publishers from plunging revenue in a weakening economy, said Thursday it was suspending dividend payments and paying higher interest rates to gain more flexibility with lenders.

A new credit agreement with lenders changes the formula-based financial targets that Lee must meet to avoid technical default, which ultimately could force the company to sell assets or declare bankruptcy. It raises one threshold and lowers another to account for reduced cash flow.

Lee Enterprises, based in Davenport, Iowa, owns Mid-Valley Publishing, which includes the Gazette-Times, Albany Democrat-Herald and the Lebanon Express.

The new agreement also reduces Lee’s revolving credit line to $375 million, from $450 million. The company said it had drawn only $207 million as of Sept. 30.

As part of the agreement, Lee cannot pay dividends until it can lower debt to no more than 4.5 times its cash flow, not expected before September 2010. The new terms let Lee take on debt of as much as 6.75 times its cash flow.

Although Lee and other newspaper companies have been paying off debt, the reduction hasn’t been as fast as the decline in advertising revenue, causing what’s known as the leverage ratio to approach or exceed the maximum permitted.

The changes and new agreement with lenders are similar to those obtained over the past two months by other newspaper groups.

In Lee’s case, Chief Financial Officer Carl Schmidt said the company likely met its targets for the fiscal year that ended in September. However, the old agreement had called for tighter requirements to start in the current quarter.

“Accordingly, given the uncertainty of the current economic environment, we and our lenders believed certain adjustments were appropriate at the present time,” he said in a statement. “It is encouraging that even in a tumultuous credit environment, such amendments can be obtained.”

Lee, which reports its fiscal fourth quarter earnings on Nov. 13, had $1.24 billion in net debt as of June 29, much of it a result of its 2005 acquisition of Pulitzer Inc.

Mary Junck, Lee’s chairman and chief executive, said the suspension of dividends, while mandated under the new agreement, should produce annual savings of $34 million to further reduce debt.