A Near-Death Experience   

The owners of the Jersey Journal almost close the paper when union negotiations over cutting half the staff break down.

The Jersey Journal lives--for now, at least.

A 135-year-old paper in one of New Jersey's most populous counties, across the river from Manhattan, the Journal almost died last month. Management had given the paper's three unions 30 days to slash about half their workers; if they didn't, the paper would close. The last of the unions to come to the table broke off talks two days before deadline. The next morning, January 31, management announced that the February 2 edition would be the last--leaving Jersey City and Hudson County without a daily.

In the closing minutes of a day in which staffers packed up the contents of their desks and the mayor of Jersey City offered the Journal up to $1 million in grants, loans and tax breaks, the drivers' union reached a tentative agreement with management, saving the paper but formalizing the departure of nine drivers, 19 sales and business employees and 17 newsroom employees by early spring.

The deal still hinges on all 45 signing waivers agreeing not to sue. Departing workers will receive two weeks' severance pay for each year of service, plus either six or nine months' health care coverage, depending on which union they're in, according to union reps.

In the newsroom, "some are very bitter and angry; others can't wait to leave," says Ron Leir, president of Hudson County Newspaper Guild Local 42 and a 30-year employee.

City Editor Agustin C. Torres sums up what both management and staff say are the reasons the paper, known for its coverage of corrupt politicians and colorful characters, is losing circulation and ad dollars. "Economically, the area is poor, with low-income families," he says. "Ironically, the Jersey waterfront is bustling. It's being called Wall Street West. They're still mostly New Yorkers down there."

Which means they read New York papers. Says Editor in Chief Steven Newhouse of the Journal's efforts to serve such an economically and culturally divided county: "The common denominator had to be an interest in local affairs. We just could not crack the code on people who are using the area as a bedroom community."

From a peak of more than 100,000 in the 1970s, the Journal's circulation has fallen to 42,000.

Just what the paper will do, using half the firepower, to try to turn things around has yet to be determined, Newhouse told AJR at press time. Newhouse, whose family owns the Journal through its Advance Publications Newspaper Group, was the paper's spokesman during the staff reduction negotiations even though he hasn't been involved in daily operations there for years. Publisher Scott Ring declined to answer AJR's questions, and Editor Judith Locorriere did not return phone calls.

Leir, a reporter, expresses little optimism about the paper's prospects. "If it's unprofitable now, why would [people] buy it if there's even less in it?" he says. "They've already told us that newshole is going to be cut, there's going to be less features, fewer comics, no movie [schedule], they're cutting back syndicated columns. There may even be fewer wire services."

Leir laments the loss of some local columnists, among them Sally Deering, whose Jersey Girl attitude and love of Hudson County make her column one of the most popular in the paper. "I volunteered to leave," she says. "It was time for me to go."

Deering stayed for years because she loves her work, she says, and not for the pay, which is notoriously low, topping at about $41,000 a year for reporters, according to Leir. "You go into the [staff] kitchen and open up the refrigerator, it's full of brown bags," Deering says.

And why have so many--like Leir, political columnist Peter Weiss, who's been there 30 years, and Torres, who started as a copy boy 28 years ago--stayed so long?

"This area is unbelievable for news," Torres says. "It's really what kept a lot of us here."