Challenging times, but we look ahead
In the News • MARK ROSMAN

You may have read recent reports about the struggles the newspaper business is facing these days. Going back to the time before the present recession hit the United States, newspapers were facing a changing climate — one in which advertisers and readers were migrating to other types of media in an effort to connect with news and information.

Let me tell you something: reading about all of those changes can make for a lot of apprehension in a newsroom. That goes for the advertising side and the editorial side. People in newspapers — just as in any other business — start wondering if their jobs are safe.

As an employee of Greater Media Newspapers, I have been wondering about that situation myself in recent months and more specifically in the month since John Bordes, 67, the chairman of the board of Greater Media Inc., passed away unexpectedly.

So there was some uncertainty in the air when the man who has been named to succeed Bordes as the chairman of the board of Greater Media, Peter Smyth, arrived in our Freehold Township office last week for a meeting with the advertising and editorial managers at Greater Media Newspapers.

Smyth is one of the most highly respected executives in the media industry. He is a frequent panelist at any number of conferences and conventions. He has been employed by Greater Media since the mid-1980s and was serving as the president and CEO of the company before being named chairman of the board on Oct. 29.

His discussion with our managers was frank and to the point. He noted that the current economic situation is extremely challenging, but it is one from which we can and will recover. It is a difficult advertising climate, but it is not time to roll up the carpet.

In fact, the opposite is true. Greater Media is a family-owned company that has a 50-year history in radio broadcasting and publishing. The people who are in control are not controlled by Wall Street, which is something that John Bordes told me directly when I interviewed him for an article that appeared in our company magazine on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Greater Media a few years ago.

Look at a daily newspaper. The local content is shrinking. Wire copy fills most of the pages. Circulation is down and employees are being bought out or laid off. Our state's largest daily newspaper, The Star- Ledger, was in a precarious position until employees recently agreed to concessions.

Community newspapers, Smyth reminded us, are the papers that will be stronger going forward because we give people news about where they live, about what is happening in their neighborhoods.

We do not fill our space with wire service copy about out-of-state events.

What community newspapers will have to adapt to — and we are addressing with a new and evolving presence on the Internet — is delivering the news on a schedule the consumer wants. Rather than waiting a week to deliver a newspaper to your door, we are taking the first steps toward posting breaking news on our Web site.

Our reporters and editorial staffs are being contacted by more people than ever before who want to place their stories and information in our papers.

Those are among the reasons, Smyth said, that there are no plans on the part of our private owners to sell Greater Media Newspapers or to close any of the newspapers we currently publish in Monmouth, Ocean and Middlesex counties.

After several of our managing editors asked Smyth if we could make public his comments regarding our situation, he said we could. He said he is proud of the work we do as community journalists and he sees that as a promising future.

The reality of the times is that while we are not in an expansion mode right now and while the people here are working as hard as they can so that our business can be as profitable as possible, we are not in the same precarious position as publicly held media firms.

For that, my fellow employees and I are very grateful.

Mark Rosman is a managing editor at Greater Media Newspapers.