Gannett closes, merges suburban weeklies in eastern Mass.

"Gannett is closing at least 19 print weekly newspapers serving at least 26 communities in Eastern Massachusetts, according to notices posted on those papers’ websites. In addition, nine weeklies are being merged into four," Northwestern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy reports for Media Nation. Many of the papers "have been zombie papers for quite some time, carrying little if any local news. And the current round of closures follows the revelation several weeks ago that staff reporters at nearly all of Gannett’s Massachusetts weeklies would be assigned to regional beats, pulling them off bread-and-butter coverage of local government and community events. The only weeklies not affected by that earlier change were the Cambridge Chronicle, the Old Colony Memorial of Plymouth and the Provincetown Banner." Kennedy's article lists all the Massachusetts papers Gannett has closed or merged over the past year.

Gannett is the nation's largest newspaper chain, publishing more than 100 dailies in 46 states and over 1,000 weeklies. "As I’ve said before, I have no problem with moving to digital in order to save costs and invest in local journalism. But Gannett is cutting print and journalism simultaneously," Kennedy writes. "Fortunately, there are many sources of independently owned local news outlets in Massachusetts. Please support them."

The move follows the trend that most newspaper closures are in the suburbs; even industry veterans often fail to distinguish between such papers and rural weeklies. But, though these closures are mostly suburban, "It is not a good sign for rural papers," said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog.