In 2019, The Record and NorthJersey.com lost 16,000 readers daily, 19,600 Sunday

READERS FLEE: The Record of Woodland Park and the Hackensack Chronicle, a weekly that reprints stories and other material from the once-great daily newspaper.

How low can circulation,
 ad revenue go before 
 Gannett folds print edition?

Editor's note: At the end of this post, I've added a link to my July 2016 report on how the Borgs took Gannett's money and ran.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The Record of Woodland Park and NorthJersey.com have slipped to 9th place among Gannett Co.'s major publications and digital platforms.

In 2016, the year the Borg family sold them to Gannett, the once-great daily newspaper and its website were listed 3rd (in readership or circulation) after USA Today and the Detroit Free Press, according to the annual report issued in April 2017.

The 2019 annual report released on April 18 lists circulation or readership of The Record and NorthJersey.com as 52,623 daily and 70,682 on Sunday.

That's a decline of 16,oo7 daily and 19,670 on Sunday from circulation figures listed for the print edition and website -- 68,630 daily and 90,352 Sunday -- in the 2018 annual report.

At the end of 2016, the combined circulation or readership was listed as 235,681 daily and 147,609 Sunday.

With daily readership in 2019 less than a quarter of what it was in 2016, and with Sunday circulation at less than half of the original, further losses in revenue might prompt Gannett to fold the print edition. 

A drastic decline in local news, and the decision in 2019 to limit some digital access to subscribers likely are factors in the plummeting readership.

Ad revenue sinks

The amount of circulation is the primary factor in the pricing of advertising space, meaning Gannett likely has had to reduce how much it charges for ads in The Record and on NorthJersey.com.

Print advertising alone accounted for about 37% of "our total revenue" nationwide as of Dec. 31, 2019, according to Gannett.

"Additionally, brick-and-mortar businesses are significant consumers of print advertising and with the rise of digital commerce many of these types of businesses have -- and continue to -- close retail outlets, which adversely affects the demand for print advertising," the 2019 annual report says.

10 N.J. dailies

Many of the department stores, restaurants and other businesses that Gannett has relied on for advertising revenue have been shuttered by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The 2019 annual report says Gannett owns 10 daily newspapers in New Jersey, 6 weeklies and 2 production facilities.

Gannett lists the total number of its local media organizations in 46 states and on Guam as 261 daily newspapers and 302 weeklies, plus 72 production facilities.

More layoffs

On April 27, the New Jersey Globe reported The Record "axed" Editorial Page Editor Bruce Lowry, calling him "the latest casualty in layoffs occurring throughout the Gannett organization."

"The move comes four weeks after Gannett began furloughing employees due to the economic effects of the deadly coronavirus," wrote New Jersey Globe Editor David Wildstein, who referred to the paper as the "Bergen Record."

As an executive at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Wildstein was a key figure in the Bridgegate scandal during the administration of Chris Christie, the worst governor in New Jersey history. 

Wildstein's New Jersey Globe reported "Gannett Statehouse bureau chief John McAlpin is on furlough this week, along with columnist Charles Stile and reporter Ashley Balcerzak."

More from Wildstein

"That's 3/5s of Gannett NJ's Statehouse idled at home when people want and need information the most," tweeted Bergen Record reporter Dustin Racioppi.

"Jennifer Jean Miller, who broke a huge story this month about 17 bodies being found at the Andover Subacute facility was laid off from her job as a reporter for the Gannett-owned New Jersey Herald," the Globe said.

"Other Gannett New Jersey reporters have also lost their jobs over the last three days," the Globe's April 27 report said, "including one journalist who is pregnant with a due date in the next two weeks."

"Dan Sforza, the executive editor of The Record, has not replied to four direct messages seeking comment on Gannett layoffs...." 

MOUND OF DIRT: The Borg family retained ownership of nearly 20 acres along River Street in Hackensack, where The Record's old headquarters gave way to many big mounds of dirt, foreground. The Borgs' plan to build luxury apartments and work on other apartment projects on Main Street have been suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

GateHouse and Gannett

Last summer, Wildstein reported, GateHouse Media acquired Gannett for $12.06 a share. 

"The deal was structured to include a massive debt that would require hundreds of millions in cuts to pay back a $1.2 billion loan that was part of the deal to keep them afloat," he said, adding Gannett stock plummeted to 64 cents almost three weeks ago, "signaling immense problems ahead for the company.

"The stock is currently trading at 78 cents a share," Wildstein's Globe reported on April 27.

Read: NorthJersey.com limits

 stories to subscribers

Read: 2019 Gannett Co. Annual Report

Read: The Borgs took Gannett's money and ran ...

The Record calls Trump tweets stressful, but week-long series fails to look inward

Costa Rican cartoonist Arcadio Esquivel commenting on Russian Dictator and Syrian War Criminal Vladimir Putin's latest stunt -- claiming his new "invincible" missile can pierce U.S. defenses. President Trump didn't comment directly on the assertion by his BFF.

White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, a former model, is leaving after testifying she told "white lies" for Trump, including "Your hands are so big and strong," "Your tweeting is bringing the country together" and "You are making America great again," says cartoonist John Darkow of the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune.

 -- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The Record's weeklong series -- "EVERYBODY IS EXHAUSTED" -- identifies the "non-stop barrage of Presidential tweets" as among the chief causes of "why we're stressed."

"The chaos of life and its collision with technology and tragedy has more of us feeling drained, frazzled and emotionally overrun," Staff Writer Jim Beckerman wrote on Page 1 a week ago.

The series in my local daily newspaper examined the causes, and what we can do about it.

"Politics may actually be stressing you out," The Record reported last Sunday in a Better Living cover story appearing under this headline:

"The Trump effect"

A therapist is quoted as saying some of her patients point directly to President Trump as a major cause of their stress.

Often, his tweets are hateful, and they are always filled with lies, yet the news media seem to take delight in repeating them word for word.

#Gannettruinedmypaper

But the Woodland Park daily left enormous holes in this weeklong report: 

For example, the Gannett Co. takeover in July 2016 has played a big role in stressing out readers -- from the widespread layoffs that deprive them of a full local-news report to the $75-a-year hike in 7-day home delivery of the print edition.

Also missing is how The Record reports almost exclusively on political conflict in Trenton and Washington, ignoring issues and what is good for the people, their state and their nation.

Web going dark

Now, Executive Editor Rick Green has informed readers that starting on Tuesday, "only subscribers" will be able to have full access "to our digital content anytime and anywhere."

"We are limiting access to content on our website [New Jersey.com] and apps for people who do not subscribe," said Green, a Gannett goon who showed no hesitation in axing more than 350 staffers at North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record.

Many readers, who are retired, won't miss smartphone alerts telling them NJ Transit trains are delayed or about the usual 45-minute wait at Hudson River tollbooths.

Nor will they miss NorthJersey.com rewrites of CNN bulletins or Breaking News emails from The New York Times.

Web emphasis

The previous owners put into motion the biggest downsizing in the paper's history in 2008.

About a year later, then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg moved The Record and NJMG headquarters to Woodland Park from Hackensack, where the Borg family had prospered for more than 110 years.

Gannett bought the paper from the Borgs in July 2016, and focused most of its resources on redesigning the lame website.

Meanwhile, Gannett editors gutted the staff of the print edition, and reduced the space devoted to local news from the 90 or so towns in the circulation area, as well as closing about 20 NJMG weeklies.

A redesigned NorthJersey.com shut out the mostly older readers of the print edition, many of whom don't use a computer or smartphone, and wouldn't know an app from an appetizer on an early bird menu.

Doblin leaves

Alfred P. Doblin, who was editorial page editor of The Record, left to take a job with New Jersey Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, says David Wildstein of NewJerseyGlobe.com (yes, that David Wildstein, who was the feds' star witness in the Bridgegate trial).

Meanwhile, NorthJersey.com's Facebook page
has been revised, and readers will no longer be able to post bad "reviews" of the fading daily or complain about not being able to reach anyone to cancel the paper.

See: What the Borgs started at The Record...

See: Readers slam daily as 'junk'

Lindy Washburn

Lindy Washburn, a veteran reporter who survived the layoffs, continues to do meaningful reporting on her medical beat.

Her byline appears today over a Page 1 investigation of deaths at New Jersey surgery centers (includes reporting by Kaiser Health News).

In January, Washburn exposed the nearly 2 times higher risk of death during childbirth of New Jersey moms, compared to those in other parts of the country, and the even higher risk if they are African-American.

Cartoonist Paresh Nath commenting on the many countries that have intervened in the never-ending Syrian civil war, propping up the regime of President Bashar Al Assad, a war criminal who reportedly is using chemical weapons against civilians.

Cartoonist Dave Granlund envisioning the natural evolution of President Trump's call to arm teachers after a former student killed 17 students or staff members at a Florida high school.

In Bridgegate scandal, ex-crime buster Christie keeps getting away with murder

No U.S. president in modern American history has been lampooned as savagely as President Trump has -- this time for his adoration of Vladimir Putin, the Russian dictator and Syrian war criminal. This cartoon is from Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

"Prez Putin" is title of this cartoon from Bill Day of PoliticalCartoons.com.

 -- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The Record and other New Jersey newspapers never tired of praising Chris Christie's record of convictions in public corruption cases when he was U.S. attorney from January 2002 to December 2008.

In fact, that record helped the anti-tax conservative get elected governor in 2009, and despite the Bridgegate scandal in 2013, Christie has somehow managed to escape the fate of those 130 public officials -- both Democrat and Republican -- who were convicted or pleaded guilty.

Now, as the Woodland Park daily reports on Page 1 today, the chief prosecution witness at last fall's Bridgegate trial was placed on three years of probation.

In return for his "truthful" testimony, former Port Authority executive David Wildstein also was ordered to serve 500 hours of community service, and pay $24,000 in fines and restitution for devising the September 2013 political-revenge plot at the George Washington Bridge.

He pleaded guilty to triggering the four-day traffic jam after Christie's deputy chief of staff sent him an email:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Public says 'guilty'

In the court of public opinion, Christie was convicted of inspiring the plot against Fort Lee's Democratic mayor, who refused to endorse the governor's reelection in 2013.

But Christie was never charged or required to testify under oath in court, and we don't know whether he is on the still-secret list of unindicted co-conspirators.

The scandal did doom his bid for the GOP presidential nomination. 

Still, Christie has since been appointed by President Trump to head a commission on the abuse of painkillers and an epidemic of overdose deaths.

And Trump has nominated Christie pal Christopher Wray to succeed James Comey, the FBI director the president fired in a bid to derail the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Wray was Christie's personal attorney in 2014, when the governor met secretly with the FBI about the bridge plot.

New Jersey taxpayers have forked over $2.1 million in fees to Wray's law firm in Atlanta for that representation.

Bridget Anne Kelly, left, and Bill Baroni were found guilty by a federal jury.

Truthful testimony

At the Bridgegate trial, Wildstein testified his only job at the Port Authority was to advance the interests of Christie, and that the governor knew of the lane closures and their purpose as they were happening.

In court on Wednesday, Wildstein said he and two other Christie ex-aides convicted in the plot had "put our faith and trust in a man [Christie] that neither earned it nor deserved it." 

A federal jury found former Port Authority official Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, guilty of conspiracy and other charges, but they are free while they appeal their prison sentences of 2 years and 18 months, respectively.

Both U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton and federal prosecutors, who recommended a non-custodial sentence for their star witness, said Wildstein testified truthfully at the trial.

Outside the courthouse, acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick went further:

"We would not have called Mr. Wildstein or any other witness unless we were completely confident that the witnesses' testimony was truthful, accurate and corroborated by other evidence" (6A).

'Just not right'

An editorial in The Record says, "And for all his denials and lack of criminal charges, the public does not know what Christie knew and when" he knew it (16A).

Still, the paper's Editorial Board is more upset with Wildstein than it is with Christie, the worst governor in state history.

Remember, The Record is the only major daily in the state that didn't call for the GOP bully's resignation after he endorsed Trump for president in February 2016.

"Wildstein shouldn't be allowed to walk away," the Editorial Board pouts. "It's just not right."

New York's Daily News called Governor Christie a liar for his repeated claims of innocence in the September 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closures.

Taxpayers laid out more than $10 million for a so-called internal investigation by Christie's own $650-an-hour lawyer, who cleared the governor of wrongdoing, but most New Jersey newspapers put no credibility it it, and labeled the report a whitewash. One exception was The Record. This cartoon is by Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press.