A Newspaper Moves Back Downtown   

America's urban newspapers have been packing up and moving out of downtown areas for the past 30 years, lured to the suburbs by cheap land, modern facilities and freshly paved highways.

Now the York, Pennsylvania, Daily Record is reversing the trend. Next year, on the occasion of its bicentennial, the 42,000-circulation a.m. will relocate its newsroom and administrative offices in downtown York after 23 years in suburbia.

While no statistics are available on location shifts by newspapers, the number of papers that have moved to the outskirts of cities nationwide is easily in the hundreds.

Daily Record Editor and Publisher Dennis Hetzel says he doesn't know of any other newspapers that have gone in the other direction, but he says he is comfortable with the decision. "Newspapers are so pious editorially about saving cities," he says. "Why shouldn't we walk the walk?"

Hetzel, a newspaper veteran, has experienced both the up and down sides of newspaper migration. For four years he lived with the frustration of working on the outskirts of the city he covered at Madison, Wisconsin's Capital-Times. "It was a beautiful city, and we weren't in it," he says of his time there. "We could see the Capitol but we had to drive to it."

York, which has a population of 42,000, seems to be a thriving city. While most cities complain about urban flight and an ever-shrinking tax base, York's downtown has an impressive display of occupied storefronts and heavy pedestrian traffic.

Since 1990 the Daily Record and the York Dispatch, a p.m. with a circulation of 40,000, have been run under a joint operating agreement between Garden State Newspapers, which owns the Dispatch, and the Seattle-based Buckner News Alliance, owner of the Record.

While the papers share a printing plant that in 1973 moved to the suburbs, the Dispatch's 58-member editorial staff remained in downtown York. The decision to stay in the city, says Editor and Publisher Jim Sneddon, "always gave us the psychological advantage."

Nevertheless, he says he welcomes the return of the Daily Record because it sends an important signal to York's residents that the city is viable.

The Daily Record has operated out of a windowless building on Industrial Highway, near Caterpillar, Harley Davidson and other manufacturers, since 1973. While the modern facility offered the newspaper more space, it also made it more difficult for reporters to reach newsmakers and for in-town readers to get to the newspaper's offices. Reporters covering courts, police and city government must make a 6-mile round-trip, while area residents trying to visit the newspaper's offices are forced to battle heavy truck traffic along a key access route.

But by this time next year the paper's headquarters will back up against York's City Hall and courthouse. "It's a big joke around here," says Eric Menzer, York's economic development director. "Why are we helping them get close to us?"

But Menzer is thrilled to see the paper return. "There are tangible economic benefits, but it's also symbolic. They moved out at a time when many people said the suburbs were where it's at. Now the newspaper – the voice of the community – is making a commitment to the city."

The Daily Record, one of the nation's oldest continuously operating newspapers, has a long history in York. Founded in 1796 as the Gazette, it was printed in German until 1815. Next June, as part of a $4 million redevelopment project, the paper and its 65-member staff will return to a familiar neighborhood, one block from the parking lot where its old newspaper office once stood.

Does the newspaper view its return as a risky venture?

Hetzel says the move makes good business sense and shows that newspapers can be what he describes as "solid citizens." "Ten years ago people thought York was in a decline, but this city has a good chance," he says. "If a small city with manageable problems can't make it, how can we hope to solve bigger urban problems?"