The Star-Ledger sent their former publisher to testify before a legislative committee on Wednesday to kill a bill that might reduce subsidies for newspapers and take a little money out of their pockets.
The proposal would allow notices to sell foreclosed property to appear online, no longer requiring them to be printed in multiple times in newspapers. Instead, the person conducting the sale would have an option to use an online auction process and print the legal notice just once in a newspaper.
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The Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee approved the bill last week in a bipartisan 4-0 vote, but the Assembly sponsor, Vince Mazzeo (D-Northfield) backed off the plan after some lawmakers said they didn’t want to hurt newspapers.
“This is a bill with significant negative consequences,” said Star-Ledger veteran Richard Vezza, who said he was representing his old newspaper and the New Jersey Press Association. “This bill is going to turn New Jersey into a news desert.”
Vezza said foreclosure ads represent the bulk of classified ad revenue for newspapers.
“Classified revenue is about half of all advertising revenue at a newspaper,” he told the Assembly Community Development and Affairs Committee. “The real purpose of this section of the bill is to hurt newspapers and hurt them badly.”
According to Vezza, three daily newspapers and 75 weekly newspapers have closed since 2004 – some of which he played a role in closing.
“That’s 75 communities or more without local news, and this bill… is going to add to that list, guaranteed,” Vezza said. “Where do you think these newspapers are going to close first? In towns like Alpine or Cherry Hill or Summit where there are rich people and merchants with plenty of advertising dollars, or communities that are Black and Brown?”
Vezza took a clear shot at online local news sites like TAPinto and Patch franchise that have surged in recent years following the decline of print newspapers.
“The assumptions that communities that lose their newspapers will get their news online is a total fallacy. The local online news sites in New Jersey are run by newspapers,” Vezza said. “There are other online sites that purport to be local and if you visit them, you can see their coverage is skimpy and spotty at best.”
He alleged that the bill is motivated because of “someone’s vendetta against newspapers.”
“I’d like a copy of this recording, if I can. If I have to file an OPRA request, let me know. I’m happy to do that,” said Vezza. Legislative committee hearings have been available online since 2001.
The elephant in the room – a drop in daily newspaper print circulation of more than 70% in the last six years – did not come up during the hearing. That means dailies like the one Vezza works for are asking to keep the revenues coming despite a significantly lower number of people who will actually see the ads.
Vezza’s testimony didn’t address the economic disparities between newspaper chains owned by Gannett and NJ Advance Media – which owns the Star-Ledger – and small, independent newspapers owned by two other publishers who appeared before the panel.
Advance Publications, which owns NJ Advance Media, is the 47th largest privately-held company in the United States. Conde Nast, the Discovery Channel, Reddit, and dozens of daily newspapers across the nation are just part of the Newhouse family portfolio. Forbes estimates Advance’s annual revenue to be $6.25 billion.
Last year, Advance made an all-cash deal to buy the Beijing-based Ironman group for $730 million and announced a $200 million investment in Scopely, a “fast-growing mobile games space” that allows you to play Wheel of Fortune on your smartphone.
“I’m about the furthest thing from the Star-Ledger and big papers,” said Ocean City Sentinel publisher David Nahan. “This legislation hurts us unnecessarily. It does have to. It doesn’t have to cut a revenue source I use to maintain my staff year-round.”
He asked legislators not to punish newspapers.
“The revenue we get from these sheriff sales, which isn’t paid by taxpayers, help my newspapers survive in regular years, not just during pandemics,” Nahan said.
Brett Ainsworth, the publisher of the Collingswood-based The Retrospect, put some pressure on Assemblyman William Spearman (D-Camden), saying that his newspaper covers part of his district.
He said he needs the sheriff notice revenues to survive.
“Sheriff’s notices represented about 10% of our income,” Ainsworth said. “Going into the pandemic, we obviously lost that revenue. We also lost half of our advertising revenue.”
Spearman folded quickly, promising to speak with Mazzeo “so that local newspapers can continue to receive support in the form of classified ads.”
Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake (D-East Orange) said that New Jersey was the number one state in the nation in foreclosures.
“This bill is actually going to streamline the process even more,” she said. “It’s not that we can’t move to online because of course that’s the way in which everything is moving toward in the future.”
Morris County Sheriff’s Detective Lt. Michael Turkot said sheriff’s sales don’t speed up the foreclosure process.
“Once it’s sent to the sheriff’s office, the foreclosure is done,” Turkot said. “An online format exposes this sheriff’s sale to the country, to surrounding counties, to surrounding towns that might not receive these newspapers. That’s irrespective to whatever advertising there may be.”
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