Fri. Nov 1st, 2024

Wednesday’s news that Advance will stop publishing the Star-Ledger and shut down the Jersey Journal in February was a devastating blow. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)

I grew up in a family that loved newspapers.

On a normal day, my parents bought the New York Times for national news, the New York Daily News for a bit of color and trash, and the Asbury Park Press to learn what was going on locally. On Sundays, we each grabbed a section or two of a paper and read aloud the good bits as we ate breakfast.

And long before I had bylines in newspapers — before I was born, in fact — I had a mention in one. The Dec. 26, 1976, edition of the Star-Ledger included a feature story about my family on page 49 of section one (!) that included this line: “The McDonalds are expecting another natural child in the spring.” That would be me.

So Wednesday’s news that Advance will stop publishing the Star-Ledger in February and entirely shutter the Jersey Journal was a devastating blow not just because I worked at one of those papers for a long time, have had many bylines in both, and count those who still work there as friends and colleagues, but because I’ve treasured newspapers for as long as I can remember.

I’m not blind to the realities of 2024. I realize that many, many more people get their news not from print publications but from online outlets, and I recognize that it’s easier and cheaper to pick up your phone to scan the latest headlines than it is to find somewhere that sells newspapers or have one delivered to your front door.

Still, it’s hard not to feel like we’re losing something major here, not just from the impending shuttering of the state’s biggest newspaper but from the demise of smaller papers like the Jersey Journal (The Times of Trenton, the South Jersey Times and the Hunterdon County Democrat will also no longer be printed). These are the papers that write about what happens at council meetings and what the school board does and what zoning changes developers are seeking. They reveal when city officials bungle an important contract for mental health services and the extent of the financial mismanagement at a local college and the details of a mayor/would-be governor quietly padding his salary.

If Donald Trump is reelected next month, the media frenzy that trails him and focuses on his every word and action will return in full force, leaving fewer avenues for citizens to find out what’s happening outside of D.C. We don’t need fewer papers focused on local news; we need many more.

James Solomon, a Jersey City councilman running to be elected the city’s mayor next year, said the end of the Jersey Journal will be a “disaster for residents.” There are multiple online outlets that cover Jersey City and Hudson County — they do great work! — but Solomon said no daily newspaper means there will be no “core source of news in Hudson County.”

“Hudson County has a well-earned reputation for corruption and the fewer people that are looking, the bolder bad actors will feel to take action,” he said.

The news about the Star-Ledger is a bit less dire. While the paper will disappear, its online counterpart, NJ.com, will continue operating with stories from outstanding reporters like Brent Johnson, Sean Sullivan, and Sue Livio, just to name a few. Steve Alessi, president of NJ Advance Media, promised shutting down the Ledger will allow the company “to invest more deeply than ever in our journalism.” I hope so, but I worry that’s just rosy spin from a company that just axed dozens of people from an outlet that has shed hundreds of jobs in the last decade.

Chris Daggett is board chair and interim executive director of the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, a nonprofit the state created to help revitalize local news statewide. Like me, Daggett is alarmed about the consequences of our state’s biggest newspaper halting production.

“When people are less informed about their communities, they are less engaged and when they are less engaged, that hurts democracy,” he said. “These are blows to the body politic.”

Stefanie Murray, director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, agreed, and added there’s also symbolic harm.

“There will be no print artifact anymore that you can hold in your hand after a major event,” Murray said.

Our parents may have held onto papers from the day after the moon landing and we may have newspapers from Sept. 12, 2001, in boxes in our closets, but our kids will have to settle for screenshots on their phones of headlines declaring the end of World War III. As a historical relic, it won’t feel nearly as satisfying.

There will be time soon for a fuller debate about the reasons why a state of 9 million people can’t sustain a daily, statewide newspaper. Digital media’s rise in popularity has probably played the largest part, but bone-headed decisions made by corporate bosses and growing mistrust of reporters by conservative Americans — some of it valid! — all play a role. But on this day, I’ll simply mourn what we’re losing, and fear what it means for the future.

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