Editor’s Note: Local news takes a huge blow across the Hudson River

Eyebrows raised when I left the Daily News after almost eight years to join the Star-Ledger in 2005. It was a dream to work at the iconic, prize-winning tabloid. Why take a job at “the newspaper for New Jersey?” Friends joked it was for the pension. The Ledger had a robust compensation package at the time. But it was still a destination paper. Jim Willse, a former Daily News editor who left to lead the Ledger, was on a recruiting spree and had just won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for coverage of former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey’s coming out as “a gay American.” I covered the story for the News, competing against the Ledger, which led to a job offer. I accepted, tempted by the switch to long-form journalism and easier commute from Pennsylvania where I had moved for the cheaper cost of living.

My career at the Ledger ended with a buyout in 2009, as the paper’s owners shrunk the news staff by 40%, citing economic difficulties. That started a death spiral, which culminated with the paper’s last print edition on Sunday. It will continue online, according to its owner, the Newark Morning Ledger Co., which owns The Times of Trenton and South Jersey Times that will also end their print editions and go strictly online. The Jersey Journal, operated by the Evening Journal Association, shut down on Feb. 1. Some say the Ledger was never the same after letting go of so many reporters, editors and photographers – as is the case now for New Jersey and the New York region with fewer printed papers on the news stands and even less local news coverage.