New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Hartford Courant to close newsroom
HARTFORD — The Broad Street offices of the Hartford Courant will close Dec. 27, a spokesman for Tribune Publishing, the newspaper’s owner, confirmed Friday.
A statement provided by Tribune spokesman Max Reinsdorf Friday evening cited “no clear path forward in terms of returning to work” and the company evaluating “its real estate needs” in light of the COVID-19 pandemic as reasons for the closure.
The paper, often noted as the oldest continuously published newspaper in the country, will continue to operate, according to a statement attributed to Andrew Julien, the Courant’s publisher and editor-in-chief.
“This is a decision about real estate needs amid a difficult and challenging time on both the public health and economic fronts,” Julien said in the statement. “It won’t change the essence of what we do: Delivering the high-impact journalism readers have come to expect from the Courant and crafting creative solutions that meet the needs of our advertising partners.”
The decision to shutter the paper’s Broad Street office came less than two months after Tribune announced it would close the Courant’s printing plant, cutting 151 jobs and outsourcing printing of the newspaper to Massachusetts.
In a statement, The Courant Guild, the newsroom’s union, called the decision to close the office “a slap in the face to the reporters, editors, columnists and advertising staff who have worked for decades to produce the state’s largest news
paper.”
“Today is a sad day in The Hartford Courant’s history,” the organization tweeted. “We are indefinitely without an office.”
The guild is trying to find a new owner to purchase the Courant, and has even launched a website to help with its mission.
“The Courant staff have worked throughout the pandemic and for centuries before that to provide Connecticut residents with the best possible news coverage. We want that legacy to continue for centuries more,” the union’s statement said. “But under Tribune Publishing’s ownership, that future is threatened, as the company clearly demonstrated with Friday’s announcement.”
Tribune Publishing purchased the Courant in 2000, according to the publication’s website. It has operated out of the Broad Street office for 70 years, according to the union.
Emily Brindley, a mobilizer for the union and Courant reporter, said the newsroom was informed of the decision in an email from Julien around 3 p.m. Friday.
Employees were told they would have to clear out their desks by Dec. 23, she said.
Julien held a conference call with the paper’s staff shortly after the email was sent out with employees mostly asking questions about the logistics of the closure.
Like many offices, Courant staff have been working remotely during the pandemic.
Brindley described the change as “disheartening,” now that staff no longer have the prospect of returning to the office.
“It just kind of feels like in a few weeks we’re just going to be floating in space,” she said. “Like there’s nothing tethering us to Hartford anymore.”
Rich Hanley, associate professor of journalism at Quinnipiac University, said closing the Courant’s office “signals a loss of confidence in any financial recovery from the pandemic once that eases.”
“The newspaper is that much closer to ending its run as America's oldest continuously published newspaper as a result,” Hanley said. “Newsrooms are more than just offices. The space provides an internal information ecosystem where the essential informal mentoring between veteran reporters and newcomers occurs, where conversations across desks lead to investigative stories and where unit cohesion preserves the sense of mission and camaraderie essential to the hard, often frustrating enterprise of news gathering and reporting.”