Mark Spivey's InJersey column today seems to portend something that has been mulled for decades - dropping coverage of Plainfield.When a new publisher at the Courier News launched the westward-ho direction toward Somerset and Hunterdon counties many years ago, the question of the viability of the Plainfield beat began coming up regularly. The city always produced lots of breaking news, but much of it was embarrassing to residents and officials, even though it was true. The "good news" stories, about the city's many attractions, community leaders, worthy civic groups and important strides toward revitalization, could not compete in the memories of readers, even though they were there for all to see.
Given the increased leaning toward the affluent, rapidly expanding boroughs and townships to the west, the Queen City began coming across as a fading dowager - with issues. Every so often, the management would assign coverage of some non-urban parts of western Union County, but Plainfield - the only urban center in the entire readership area - remained problematic, both for its lack of advertising revenue and for the newspaper's perceived beating-up on the community.
As the only reporter actually living in Plainfield, I had a great fascination with its people and its day-to-day happenings, but I used to call myself the Far East correspondent as far as the newspaper was concerned. The focus was definitely on Somerset County as a key element of New Jersey's "wealth belt."
It is now nearly eight years after I retired and the increasing turbulence of the newspaper industry makes me very glad I washed up on the shores with a little pension before the tsunami of layoffs, firings, furloughs and pay cuts struck. A young journalist today is facing a shifting industry that has not found its feet in the new world of online media.
The danger to Plainfield may be that neither the so-called legacy media nor the new online "Patch" model will be inclined to commit resources to covering the city in the future, but will cater to communities that are richer and more stable. It will be a business decision, not a journalistic one. And as much as Plainfielders gripe about news coverage, believe me, the community will be poorer for the lack of it.
--Bernice
As of result, residents will get their news primarily from bloggers. The question is will all bloggers pledge to journalistic integrity or will some be reduced to partisan hacks. Bernice, I think your blog has been the most reputable due to your training.
ReplyDeleteI find no significant difference in the level of reporting between Bernice, Dan and Mark. Yes, Dan is clearly partisan but you can pretty easily see through that, and Mark has to cover a wider group of events by nature of his job, but I would grade the three of them about the same. The question is who will provide the institutional continuity that a newspaper brings?
ReplyDeleteAh .... if only we had WERA-AM, but alas we have the Plainfield's Cable TV channel which I can not recieve well on my car radio.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious as to what the readership is like in Plainfield. I do still subscribe to the courier news just because it is the only paper to give any attention to Plainfield. But I've never seen anyone getting on the train reading it, its always the star ledger or NY times/ post/daily news
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, I emailed the editor of the Scotch Plains-Fanwood Patch.com site, Alan Neuhauser, to ask if there were plans to launch a Plainfield Patch site any time soon. That was a week ago; to date, I have received no response at all. Guess that says something.
ReplyDeleteBernice: in answer to Ron's question, The Courier's circulation was about 3,000 last time I checked. I just looked on Google, and found that The Somerville Courier News has a circulation of 17,531. Is that possible? I, too, have it delivered.
ReplyDeleteI thought I posted a comment earlier and even saw it, but now it's gone. Anyway, according to figures I have, the CN had a Sunday circulation of 32,163 and a Monday to Saturday circulation of 32,840 in 2008. In September 2009, the figures were 23,560 and 19,397 and in September 2010 22,134 and 18,392 respectively. At a meeting in Plainfield a year or so ago, the circulation for Plainfield alone was cited as 3,000.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Courier News' most recent ABC audit (March 2010), paid circulation in the Plainfield ZIP Codes (07060, 07062, 07063), which includes some parts of other municipalities...
ReplyDeleteDaily 2,062
Sunday 2,250
And, six months later... The Courier News' overall circulation dropped from 22,105 Daily/25,815 Sunday (March 2010 audit) to 18,392 Daily/22,134 Sunday (Sept. 2010 Publisher's Statement).
The 3,000 figure is a stretch but not as exaggerated by the Courier News in some of its other towns. In Hillsborough, for example, the paid daily circ is 1,868, according to the most recent ABC audit. Management of the Courier claimed that figure is 6,000.
You will all remember that not too long ago the Courier was covering Hillsborough as if it were the only town in its coverage area.