Last month the Star-Ledger announced that December 30, 2023, would mark the last Saturday print edition of the newspaper. (Its sister publication, the Express-Times made a similar announcement.) In the perhaps not so distant future when the obituary for this print newspaper is written this event will mark a turning point.
To be sure, the economic and social forces that seem inexorably to be leading to this result started long ago and the loss of one day a week’s print newspaper is more effect than cause,1 but I believe that it marks the point where it became inevitable that local news for most of us, such as it is, will be available only on-line.
One must not forget that newspapers, as important to democracy and even noble as they want to believe they are, are also, at bottom, profit-seeking businesses. Businesses seek ever to grow larger and operate more efficiently. I see newspaper consolidation, both within the same market and then on a regional basis, as a significant factor in their current problems.
Imagine, in those halcyon days of yore, that many communities were served by multiple local newspapers, giving their customers all of the benefits flowing from competition, great service at low prices. Then imagine either the closing of the economically weaker newspaper or its acquisition by the stronger: the Newark Star-Eagle and the Newark Ledger combine to form the Newark Star-Ledger.
But the newspaper’s circulation is not limited to a single city. Its subscribers may include suburban residents who commute to work in the city or are just civically engaged. The newspaper may serve these customers by providing news coverage of events in their towns. To the extent that other newspapers already serve the local suburban market, they fail or are bought up. Then imagine that the newspaper sees the marketing advantage in omitting the geographic descriptor.2 The Newark Star-Ledger becomes the Star-Ledger.
This intra- and inter-municipal consolidation broadens the audience served, but also results in less focused local coverage. Reporters cease to attend local government meetings. Citizens lose access to information on what their local governments are doing on a day-to-day basis. Customers drop off.
Other media then take some of the remaining customers. The internet is a major factor today, but it started with radio and television. They lack the ability to provide the extensive, comprehensive news coverage I would like to see. A few minutes at the top of the hour, or a half-hour at dinner time (further reduced by commercials and including not just “real news,” but also sports, weather, and fluff, just can’t replace the newspaper.
In some way, the internet does not suffer these limitations, and it is not a foregone conclusion that it cannot serve as a worthy substitute, but it has yet to prove to be the case. Websites can be very splashy, but they need content. Their owners can pay reporters or seek volunteers. A few volunteers may be motivated and dedicated, but this is not a realistic business model. So, they have to pay reporters, which just recreates the problem in another medium.3
Jay Bohn
October 19, 2023
- It is part of a cycle where service-cutting and price increases meant to deal with the loss of subscribers only drives more people away, just like the postal service. ↩︎
- In this imagined past the reason for this is not dissatisfaction with anything about Newark, just the concern that the inclusion of one location’s name will run counter to the message that the publication is equally useful to suburban residents: “It’s not my local paper, I don’t live in Newark.” Many newspapers have eliminated reference to a specific community in their name. ↩︎
- I will admit that it seems likely to me that the cost of distributing news via a website is likely to be less than having to buy paper and ink, run a printing press and distribute physical newspapers, but I doubt that this difference is going to solve all the problems. ↩︎