Allen Weiner

As a native Philadelphian, it is always fun to poke fun at everything New Jersey, but I find nothing funny about the possibility of the Newark Star Ledger (yes, the paper Tony Sorpano would pick up at the bottom of his driveway) going out of business. Despite a huge number of buyouts (200 to be exact) and the renegotiation of two major union contracts (the drivers have yet to ratify a new agreement), the paper is not out of the woods and faces projected losses of between $20 million and $40 million for 2008.

Major metro newspapers teetering on the edge is not a problem limited to the Garden State. The Newspaper Association of America reports that overall ad revenue for 2008 is expected to decline 11.5% which comes in the wake of recent reports that online ad revenue—the future life raft many newspaper cling to—was down 2.4% in Q2 of 2008. Layoffs, downsizing, fewer print pages, combining or eliminating sections and other cost-cutting measures have been a matter of course for the past few years, but the added dimension of a credit crunch means that chains who have newspapers for sale—and the list include Cox, Copley, Journal register and McClatchy—are going to have a tough time finding buyers with enough cash in hand who are willing to make the long shot bet that daily newspapers will make a comeback. Then net result: a number of major daily newspapers will close in domino fashion with the only question in place being, who will fall first?

One candidate is the Minneapolis Star Tribune which recently missed a $9 million debt payment. If you are placing bets, also consider the Spokane Spokesman Review which recently slashed 21 of 104 newsroom employees and the Harrisburg Patriot-Review which aims to cut 25 percent of its staff. Others are in the same boat, but the list is too long and too depressing to detail. If you are looking for the gory details, one popular blog, Newspaper Death Watch, is the official biographer of this sad trend.