Read All About It

My local newspaper remade itself a few months ago, and the changes have only gotten more obvious over time.  The Newark, N.J. Star-Ledger has become more colorful and more snappy, but at the expense of content; its articles have gotten less substantial and a couple of its sections have been merged, with the result being smaller than either of the two original sections the new one replaced.    

It's a symptom of the news business, I suppose, as more and more newspapers downsize and become shadows of their former selves.  But not necessarily for reasons you might think; yes, the Internet has been accused of stealing readers from newspapers, but then newspapers pretty much survived the challenge from TV news  (except for evening papers, alas, but that's another story).  Many newspapers, in fact, have been bought by large companies aiming to squeeze as much profit out of them to maximize shareholder value, not deliver better journalism.  When shareholder value is maximized, layoffs result and the enterprise is contracted.     

Be that as it may, the Star-Ledger and many other newspapers in New Jersey subscribe to NJ Advance Media, an Internet news company that provides news-gathering services in the form of articles and reviews to papers across the state, as well as providing a real-time approach to reporting that can be accessed electronically.  The results have been most notable in the arts and entertainment content in the Star-Ledger.  Music critic Tris McCall is gone, replaced by Bobby Olivier at NJ Advance Media.  Television critic Alan Sepinwall has also departed, with gossip columnist Vicki Hyman writing the occasional review, though she now works under the NJ Advance Media umbrella. Sepinwall's departure was apparently timed with the replacement of the paper's own TV listings insert with a slicker one outsourced from another media company, included in subscriptions on Sundays at an extra cost.  Prime-time TV listings have since returned in the daily papers by popular demand.

The collaboration between New Jersey newspapers (and some Pennsylvania newspapers) is an interesting experiment, and it may yet turn out to be a fruitful one in the long term, showing that print media and digital media can exist together.  For now, though, the content in the Star-Ledger's print edition continues to shrink (much of its content is also available at NJ.com), suggesting profit over progress.