BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – New Jersey’s largest city, as of Sunday, Feb. 2, shares a dubious distinction with the likes of Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Salt Lake City and Youngstown, Ohio.
All five, indeed, have at least one professional sports team – but the answer to today’s “trivia” question is that none of them now have a daily printed newspaper.
Advance Local – parent of Newark Morning Ledger Co., NJ Advance Media and the Evening Journal Association – announced on Oct. 30 that the “Star-Ledger’ will become electronic edition-only as of Feb. 3, 2025.
Four other daily newspapers – “The Times of Trenton,” “South Jersey Times,” “The Easton (Pa.) Express-Times” and, after Jan. 30, the “Hunterdon County Democrat” weekly – will also only be found on nj.com.
A sixth publication, “The Jersey Journal,” after 157 years, was completely stopped Feb. 1. Its former readers and subscribers will have to do with nj.com’s Hudson County pages.
“We fought as hard as we could for as long as we could,” mourned David Blomqvist – “The Journal’s” last editor and publisher to Advance Media.
NJ Advance Media President Steve Alessi, on Oct. 30, cited decreasing readership, declining demand for print and inflation for folding the Ledger and the other five paper editions. Alessi tried to focus on nj.com’s electronic editions.
Alessi’s news was not a lightning bolt out of the blue.
The Ledger and Jersey Journal had stopped printing Saturday editions for the last couple of years. Both papers, like many others, became slimmer and slimmer over time.
Some of us may remember when The Sunday Ledger, like “The Sunday New York Times,” were the size of telephone directory books. (Phone books are still around but they are also smaller and harder to find.) After risking a hernia lifting the Sunday paper, one can then spend the day reading between 10 and 14 sections plus the comics, advertising circulars, a radio/television guide and maybe a Sunday magazine.
The Ledger, in the 1990s-2010s, had separate county sections. Even then, there would be “Jerseyana” and Govs. Brendan Byrne and Tom Kean, Sr.’s point-counterpoint in the editorial section.
There were sports columnists specializing in high school athletics, bowling, track and field, fishing, aviation and local and national auto racing. “The Ledger,” for a while, had daily changing full pages devoted to one sport or another.
The Ledger, in recent times, had “Bracket Boy” reappear during the NCAA Men’s basketball March tournament. Summers meant following “The Munchmobile’s” cross state adventures.
There are columnists, reporters, reviewers and editorial cartoonists who I want to name – but I would risk leaving your favorites out. Let us say that your “Ledger” memories may vary.
When the decline began is hard to say.
One remembers when “The Newark Star-Ledger” had competition from “The Newark Evening News.” A months-long strike in 1972 and labor costs caused the sometimes missed “News” to fold in 1973.
The “Jersey Journal” was meanwhile bringing its former rivals into its fold, including “The Bayonne Times” in 1971 and “The Hudson Dispatch” in 1991. It launched, “El Nuevo Hudson” en Espanol in 1995.
The 1787-founded “Elizabeth Daily Journal” left a reverberation when it ceased publication in 1992. A later study for the now-Union County Commissioners found that other dailies and weeklies tried to fill a vacuum but left a lack of a county-wide voice. The study recommended establishing a daily paper there along with reviving passenger rail service along the old CNJ Main Line.
Internet access and World Wide Web’s late 1990s advent made researching, keyboarding and filing easier. Advertisers followed the eyeballs from print to electronic mediums, upsetting traditional media’s business model to this day.
“The Ledger,” for example, printed separate free news, sports, business and classified sections that were distributed in blue curbside newspaper boxes in the early 2010s. It had tried to follow the alternative weekly newspapers’ free distribution supported by advertising and subscription model.
Some of the “Ledger’s” traditional orange boxes were repainted to herald its “ED Electronic Edition” – nj.com.
“The Ledger,” by 2014, had dropped “Newark” from its title in an attempt to become New Jersey’s newspaper. It had tried to compete with the “Bergen Record,” “Asbury Park Press,” “The Press of Atlantic City,” the “Philadelphia Inquirer” South Jersey edition and six other Jersey dailies at the time.
Advance Media/Newhouse had left behind a Newark office in Gateway Center – but otherwise vacated Newark. Its editorial office and printing press here at Court and Washington streets, built in the mid-1960s, was seen as the paper’s faith in Newark. The building now houses an art auction house.
The Ledger had been printed from Woodbridge but, in later years, out of Morris County’s Montville. That press’ mounting costs was one of its final nails.
We at “Local Talk” get a “there but the grace thereof go I” moment when we remember when Advance media came calling to Our Founder in 2015. They had wanted to buy the publication and make it a special member of their family.
Our Founder declined Advance’s offer – which may be why “Local Talk” is still here.
Indeed, our Eastern Essex County reading territory is now being covered by an overlapping patchwork of weekly and monthly newspapers and websites whose coverage and editorial quality varies greatly.
One weekly group, owned by a daily, are “ghost papers.” They have easily written articles, sometimes from out-of-the-area, and are propped up by shared advertisers.
Another group, fearing the potential loss of governmental public notices, largely publishes “positive news.” Hard news is only posted when unavoidable.
Our pledge is that we will not flinch from difficult or hard news. We will never be mistaken for an echo chamber.
Our commitment, since Nov. 1, 2000, is, “Let’s Talk for the Betterment of Our Communities.” We will strive to cover people, places and events that others may or will not cover.
We will do our best – but we cannot do it without you. If you think we are missing something, let us know.
Patronize our advertisers and marketing partners. Tell them “I saw you in ‘Local Talk.’ “
Consider joining us in getting your story, your product and/or service’s word out.
In this climate, it is more important than ever – and that is not trivial.
