MORE BAD NEWS FOR NEWSPAPERS

Newark Star-Ledger's print edition will bite the dust in February

This is a random front page I took from newspapers.com for the story.

Every morning like clockwork, I walk down my driveway to retrieve two newspapers for my wife Joy and me to read.

I pick up the New York Times and Newsday, which are wrapped in plastic to protect the papers from the elements and take them into the house.

It has been a scene that has been repeated for many, many years.

Yes, I am old school. I love to read newspapers.

It started when I was younger when I became a baseball fan and a sports fan, reading those two papers on a regular basis. I got the Times at W. Tresper Clarke High School in Westbury, N.Y. on a regular basis and read Newsday, then an afternoon paper with a bunch of marvelous writers and story tellers, when I got home from school. When my father came home with the New York Post in the evening, I would read about the latest news, sports or otherwise.

After Monday visits to the orthodontist during the fall, my mother allowed me to buy several newspapers, including the New York Daily News, New York Post and the World Journal Tribune (a combination of three great newspapers after a series of newspaper strikes decimated the papers in the sixties) to see how my beloved New York Giants and Broadway Joe Namath of the New York Jets fared the previous day.

You could say it was my internet of reading various interpretations of the games. It was an entertaining experience, although I didn't realize at the time that it was an educational one as well. I learned about various styles of writing and that you can approach a win, loss or tie in countless ways as a writer.

On most mornings these days, outside of some earth-shattering news on the front page, I usually start with the Newsday sports section, go to the front of the paper and work my way back toward the middle and features section.

Depending on the quantity of news, it could take a short time or awhile. Longer stories might be saved for later, because I need to go to work, to crank out some stories of my own.

On Oct. 30, we learned that the Newark Star-Ledger, the leading newspaper in New Jersey for decades, would cease publishing a print edition on Feb. 2, 2025. The Star-Ledger’s owner, Newark Morning Ledger Co., said it was due to rising costs, decreasing circulation and reduced demand for print. The owners added that circulation has been on a steady decline, down 21 percent over the past year.

“This decision was not made lightly, but the reality is that the print news model cannot be sustained,” Wes Turner, President of The Star-Ledger said in a statement.

There even was more bad news for New Jersey newspaper lovers. NJ Advance Media announced that it was ceasing print versions of its newspapers, including the Times of Trenton, the South Jersey Times, the Easton Express-Times and the Hunterdon County Democrat.

Ouch!

Ouch!

Ouch!

That was a hard shot to my newspaper heart. The Star-Ledger might not be out of business, but it will be out of sight for many people. It also could be out of mind for some.

It was sad to hear about the demise of another newspaper.

Yes, those papers still will be available on the internet, but any newspaper online is not the same as when you can page through it when it is in your hands. That's the fun thing about newspapers. It's sort of like that famous quote that Forrest Gump’s mother said about a box of chocolates: "You never know what you're gonna get."

You can go to any section you want - news (local, national or international), sports, features or comics.

The best thing about reading a local paper is learning about something that you didn't have any interest in, until you saw the headline, picture or read the story itself.

Instead, readers in New Jersey won't be able to learn about other news and features as easily, unless they want to leave their silos.

If you're a soccer fan, you might just want to read about the beautiful game. You might not realize there is an interesting game article, feature or human-interest story in the section unless you venture out of your silo.

Listen, I am no dummy. I have seen this coming in the newspaper business for years.

Heck, I lost my position as soccer columnist at the New York Daily News, due to the paper’s first round of cutbacks, when circulation and profits were dipping in 2010.

I didn't like it, but I learned to live with it and become a survivor by thinking out of the box.

Like I said, I am old school. That's how I was brought up. Saying that, I have tried my darnest to keep up with the latest technology, trying to keep up with the curve. Heck, I have had a cellphone for 29 years and a smart phone since 2005.

Yet, it was difficult to see the slow death of an old friend over years, if not decades.

Worse, I fear other papers will follow suit in the not-too-distant future.

I guess having a newspaper online is better than nothing.

But in some respects, I feel that it is taking a path toward nothing, and people will miss out on reading and learning about other parts of the world.

I believe that it the lack of actual news on paper and staying in our silos probably one of the major challenges facing this society has in the third decade of the 21st century, that people will read what they want to read, instead of what they need to read.

It is their loss.

Heck, it is society's loss as well.

There is no doubt that I mourn again when I hear of the demise of yet another newspaper in the future, when it goes from an actual newspaper that one can hold in his or her hands, to one in digital form.

Today, I mourn the passing of the Newark Star-Ledger and other New Jersey papers.