Despite cutting newsroom staff by 40 percent last year to avoid closure, The Star-Ledger is cutting 50 more jobs, 25 coming from the newsroom.
This is on the heels of other New Jersey papers The Asbury Park Press, The Home News Tribune, Courier News, the Courier-Post, the Daily Journal, and the Daily Record are enduring what columnist John Koblin calls seasonal cuts.
Star
Piling on the sorry state of newspaper coverage in New Jersey is the New York Times closing down its New Jersey section, and now only has two Jersey blogs covering the towns of Millburn and Maplewood.
The fear is that New Jersey is going to be unable to cover itself pretty soon, defeating its most basic reason for existence…being a watchdog. If the watchdog becomes blind (not enough reporters!) what’s the use of having it at all?
With our struggling economy, I worry that this is happening in other states as well. The article by John Koblin posits that newspapers are becoming irrelevant, and that more people are going to the web for their news, but that papers aren’t benefitting from this switch in allegiance. If this is true Americans will lose out on a staple of this culture that truly changes lives.
The rise of online journalism has its pros and cons, but at least in my opinion, newspapers hold a certain credence and respect that online publications don’t. It just seems more sturdy and true reading it on ink and paper.
So hopefully, the Star-Ledger, as well as papers around the nation can figure out ways to make online work for them, so that they can keep their print desks and have them thrive.
Tags: New Jersey, Star-Ledger
