Who's minding the shop?

Speaking of the ProJo buyout . . . David Carr, the NYT's excellent media columnist (who, btw, has a new book), had a poignant column Monday about Tony Soprano's favorite newspaper, the Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey.

The Star-Ledger delivery guy hits our block early, before the other newspapers arrive, usually dropping a hefty package jammed with localism writ large: wise-guy arias, street crime novellas and big investigations into the issues facing northern New Jersey. Under the sure hand of its editor, Jim Willse, The Star-Ledger is both modern — big and pretty with strong photos, navigation and graphics — and a throwback to the days when the most important story was the one just down the block.

In short, it’s the kind of newspaper that can get the laziest reader out of bed.

Yet all is not well.

“The owners of The Star-Ledger announced [recently] they will sell the newspaper if they cannot win union concessions and persuade a large number of nonunion, full-time workers to take buyouts in the next two months.

“The owners set a deadline of Oct. 1 for getting 200 of the newspaper’s 756 nonunion full-time employees to take a buyout and for achieving the union concessions,” suggesting that the paper’s non-union reporters and editors might be leaving in droves. In addition, the company wants union mailers and truckers to agree to concessions by the same deadline.

The article went on to quote Donald E. Newhouse, president of Advance Publications, as saying that the cuts are necessary because The Star-Ledger, along with its sister paper, The Times of Trenton, had been losing $30 million to $40 million a year. The causes included a familiar litany of ailments, including the cratering of classifieds, department store consolidation and the flight of ad dollars to the Internet. Mr. Willse was quoted in the article as saying he was still confident he could put out a good paper with the loss of one-quarter of his staff.

Here in RI, it's a good sign that Howard Sutton says the ProJo remains profitable. Yet considering the important watchdog role long played by the newspaper, it's fair to wonder about the fallout from continued cuts. As Carr noted:

Tom Moran, the political columnist of The Star-Ledger who retired earlier this year, shudders when he thinks about New Jersey, with its history of public corruption, without a fully-armed Star-Ledger looking over its shoulder.

“At least we could embarrass them and occasionally, the people would vote the bad guys out,” he said. “It’s a sad story not just for my friends who work at the paper. But for the state of New Jersey, if this continues, the bad guys will have a lot less to worry about.”