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It appears that the Times of Trenton and the South Jersey Times we’re also being printed in that same facility, so they have decided to follow a similar path forward of digital-only news coverage.

The NJ.com article states that all three online newspapers; the Star-Ledger, Times of Trenton and South Jersey Times will continue to produce content seven days a week for subscribers.

The final print editions of the three impacted newspapers will be published on February 2^nd, 2025.

NJ Advance Media is the parent company of the South Jersey Times, and the Company President presented a positive perspective to this decision in that they will be able to reallocate resources to strengthen its core newsroom.

South Jersey News – Ongoing Evolution

This is another step in the ongoing changes for South Jersey local news coverage.

South Jersey’s largest newspaper, The Courier-Post… recently closed its production/printing facility in Cherry Hill, but have chosen to continue the printed newspaper edition by producing it at a different facility. 

The “Courier” also recently announced that all of the remaining Courier-Post staff (Journalists) have moved to a 100% remote work environment.  In July I wrote about their large Cherry Hill facility being listed for sale, and I commented on the sad state of local journalism for South Jersey.

It’s really been a 30-year decline in local journalism which started with the increase usage of the Internet, diminishing the need to have a printed newspaper. 

The decline has seemed to escalate in recent years with the introduction of new social media platforms such as TikTok, where today’s busy news consumer at times seems to prefer getting their news in 10-second video clips.

For the general population the sad impact is that with the significantly reduced revenue streams, the news outlets can only staff a fraction of the journalists that they used to have decades ago.. and that means fewer articles on things impacting your community.

Despite having instant access to world in the palm of our hands.. we are actually more “in the dark” than ever.

South Jersey Times, Changing With The Times

For the South Jersey Times this is the next step in their evolution.

Back in 2012 the South Jersey Times was created when the parent company combined three different newspapers;  The Gloucester County Times, The News of Cumberland County and Today’s Sunbeam (Salem)…  into the one consolidated newspaper brand.

Consider that 30 years ago each of those 3 “South” South Jersey newspapers had full independent staffs of journalists, layout, ad sales, accounting, management, delivery, printing operations and more.

In 2012 it absolutely was the right decision to consolidate those papers, but it’s just eye opening to consider that there were likely 100+ jobs represented by those three papers 30 years ago including significantly more journalists covering all of those smaller communities.…  and today it’s just a handful of reporters covering a much broader territory, unable to cover impactful news the same way things were covered in 30 years ago.

Of course with these changes new media outlets have grown.. including this 42Freeway. But most of us are reporting, not investigating.

The days of the “gumshoe” reporter going after the next political corruption story may be a thing of the past.

News and Social Media

Lastly just a helpful “pet-peeve” suggestion to the management of South Jersey Times and NJ Advanced Media.

Can you please create new social media channels that are focused just on South Jersey Times!?

Folks who are reading this may not realize it but the NJ.com family is several newspapers throughout the entire state all sharing the NJ.com social media brand. I admit it is impressive that their single Facebook page has 1.4 million followers. (Facebook)

The problem with that (in my mind) for South Jersey newsreaders is that probably 98% of those NJ.com Facebook followers are all in Central and Northern Jersey… and similarly the significant amount of articles posted to that Facebook page have nothing to do with South Jersey.

So my point is if you’re living in Pennsville, Vineland or Harrison Township and you want to keep up with your local news on Facebook… You don’t want to follow a page (NJ.com) where 98% of the content has nothing to do with your area.

Any social media expert will tell you it’s best to have a defined channel (from the user’s perspective)… Common sense really.

To me it’s similar to a Philadelphia Eagles fan following a New England Patriots Facebook page hoping that one out of 100 articles at the Patriots page has something to say about the Eagles!   It just wouldn’t work.