Ledger closing newsroom
Move follows cuts at paper; part of trend for other dailies
In its heyday, The Patriot Ledger had a team of over 100 journalists covering the South Shore. In 1988, it moved its offices from downtown to the Crown Colony Office Park in South Quincy and stayed there for 30 years, before moving to 2 Adams Place near the Quincy-Braintree line in 2018.
But as of Jan. 19, its physical newsroom is no more. A Ledger spokesperson confirmed that its staff has been working remotely following the expiration of its lease for the Adams Place office.
“We’re embracing our flexible working model by investing more in our people and technology — rather than real estate,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement through owner Gannett. “The Patriot Ledger remains firmly committed to the sustainable future of local journalism and the communities we serve as we adapt to a progressively digital world.”
The change is a sizable shift for the nearly two-century-old newspaper that produced journalists such as former Boston Globe editor Brian McGrory and New York Times managing editor Carolyn Ryan.
“I was 21 years old and for me, being in that newsroom was just magical,” Ryan said in an interview. “I can’t imagine how you learn journalism without being exposed to that.”
But the loss of the newsroom is just the latest cutback at the Quincy daily, which replaced home delivery with mail service in 2022 and now has just 12 editorial employees listed on its staff, according to its website. Most of the staff had not been going into the office since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Scott Steeves, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, which represents journalists at the Ledger.
The Ledger is one of more than 200 daily newspapers owned by cost-cutting newspaper chain Gannett. Under pressure to pay back more than $1 billion in debt taken on when Gannett and GateHouse — at the time the two largest newspaper companies in the US — merged in 2018, Gannett has eliminated much of its real estate spending.
Despite moving the Ledger and other papers out of their offices, Gannett has emphasized that it is investing in its newspapers, including by “rebooting” small newsrooms, as Kristin Roberts said on a call discussing Gannett’s most recent financial results last week.
It’s not just Gannett publications that have been forgoing physical space. The Boston Herald no longer has its
own newsroom after it left its Braintree office in 2020. Also that year, Boston Magazine let its lease expire at Horticultural Hall in Back Bay, leaving the publication without an office.
Other newspapers across the region have sold their physical newsrooms and moved into other spaces. The Boston Globe completed the sale of its Dorchester headquarters in 2017 and has since had offices at 53 State St. in downtown Boston.
Some papers have also sold their buildings only to stay on as tenants. The New Hampshire Union Leader in Manchester, N.H., sold its building at 100 William Loeb Drive in 2017 but now leases the space it once owned. And The Concord Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning daily newspaper in New Hampshire, has been trying to sell its building at 1 Monitor Drive for roughly three years after it moved its print production to another location to double capacity, publisher Steve Leone said. The paper is seeking $2.2 million for the property, according to a listing posted to the New England Commercial Property Exchange.
“Once our building sells, we’ll continue to have a physical newsroom, just as we’ve always had, maybe even in the same place,” Leone wrote in an email. “Working together as a team of journalists remains a priority for the Monitor.”
Many journalists have clung on to the perks of working from home, saving time and money on commuting and making it easier to take care of children and pets. Like other employers, some publishers have called journalists back to the office to work on a hybrid schedule — several days in the office and the remaining at home — which has led to negotiations between management and unions.
Physical newsrooms still exist across the region, including at local TV and radio stations that are still a significant part of the local and regional news scene. Boston NPR station WBUR and the NBCUniversal — which includes NBC 10 Boston and NECN — have opened modern, splashy new buildings over the past few years.
Radio and TV stations have faced their share of financial pressures as the internet has disrupted traditional business models in news. But newspapers have been more adversely affected than other mediums.
Some journalists, current and former, lament the death of physical newsrooms, where reporters, editors, and other staff could collaborate in person and share ideas for coverage. The nostalgia for newsrooms lives on in pop culture, with movies like “The Post,” “She Said,” and “Spotlight” depicting journalism in action.
“Of course, there are advantages to remote work,” said Chris Daly, an associate professor of journalism at Boston University, who acknowledged that he worked hundreds of miles away from The Washington Post as a regional correspondent in the 1990s.
But he added, “There is no substitute I know of for rookies to learn the trade other than the newsroom.”
Steeves, of the Boston Newspaper Guild, said that he’s disappointed in the decision to close the Ledger’s newsroom. He added that in losing a newsroom, the paper is losing “a big portion of the creativeness that reporters have when they’re all together.”
Steeves hopes that the costs saved by not renewing the lease will be reinvested in the news staff. (The Boston Newspaper Guild also represents Globe reporters.)
“The people at the Ledger haven’t had a raise in four years,” Steeves said. “Here’s a perfect opportunity to take the money that you’re saving from downsizing … and give your employees a raise.”