Delivered to 15,000 Plainfield "doorsteps" Monday, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Important changes to the Star-Ledger


Today's Star-Ledger contains the following boxed notice on the front page of the "New Jersey/Union" section.

TO OUR READERS

With today's editions, we are consolidating the daily New Jersey and Union news sections into one section. The pages of the New Jersey section will be customized by edition to include a still-hefty amount of local news.

We are taking this action to save newsprint, and hence money. Because of staff cutbacks, the depth of our town and county coverage will be somewhat less for a few weeks. But we are taking steps to rebuild that coverage so it will exceed, not just equal, what we have given readers in the past.

There will be no changes in the individual Sunday county sections.
-- The Editors


As the Ledger struggles with the changing newspaper market, the first sign we see as a result of the severe staff cuts precipitated by the buyout of many long-time reporters is a single Union County story (besides a brief note on the Linden PTA theft). "Still-hefty" is a phrase that does not strike me as meaning 'more' or even 'as much'. Sort of weasel-wordy.

Unmentioned is the continued decline in advertising, which would make a separate section feasible.

Will the Ledger lose its edge as THE New Jersey paper?

0 comments: