At the end of last year the two newspapers to which I subscribe, the Star-Ledger and the Express-Times, eliminated their Saturday print editions. When that change was announced I posted Elimination of Saturday Print Edition the Beginning of the End for Star-Ledger Newspaper, in which I said: “I believe that [the elimination of the Saturday print edition] marks the point where it became inevitable that local news for most of us, such as it is, will be available only on-line.”
Today, just over a year later, I have been proved right. Both the Star-Ledger and the Express-Times announced yesterday that they will be ending their print editions entirely on February 2, 2025. The carnage includes a number of affiliated papers.
Both publications promise to reallocate resources to strengthen their core newsrooms which, if true, is the only good to come out of this development.
Look, I’m no Luddite. I get lots of news on-line, but I believe that the daily newspaper is the archetype. The publishers must decide once per day what stories make the grade, and they are permanently fixed. Once published the words cannot be unpublished. I like to think that this means great care is taken, certainly more than in an on-line edition. (I often wonder if the online editors actually even proofread what gets posted.) Other concerns apply to on-line articles, as I suggested recently.
It’s also that I find it easier to read a newspaper. A physical paper is actually more portable that a computer or tablet and to read a virtual newspaper on a phone is just way too much scrolling.
I also wonder what the elimination of print newspapers will mean for legal notices that are required to be published. With the elimination of the Star-Ledger and the Express-Times, a substantial percentage of municipalities will have lost their only local daily newspaper. See my prior posts The Purpose of Legal Advertising is to Inform the Public, Not to Support Newspapers and Some Reasons Why Public Notices Should be in the Newspaper.
Jay Bohn
October 31, 2024
Copyright 2024 by Jay Bohn.