Top New Jersey Newspapers Will End Print Editions, and One Will Close

The Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper and the winner of several Pulitzer Prizes, will stop publishing its print edition early next year, ending a lengthy run as a dominant source of print news in the region, its owners announced on Wednesday.

The shuttering of The Star-Ledger’s printing plant will cause its sister publication, The Jersey Journal, a Jersey City-based newspaper with a storied, 157-year history, to cease publication altogether. Its demise will leave Hudson County, N.J., a densely populated region that is as well known for political corruption as it is for being the birthplace of Frank Sinatra, without a daily newspaper.

David Blomquist, The Jersey Journal’s editor and publisher, said in a statement that the decision to close the printing facility, in Montville, N.J., had “forced us to assess the viability of continuing to publish The Journal.”

“Unfortunately, we have concluded that it doesn’t make sense to continue,” he said, adding: “This is certainly an emotional day for all of us.”

In addition to The Star-Ledger, at least three other newspapers that are produced in Montville, The Times of Trenton, The South Jersey Times and The Hunterdon County Democrat, will also phase out their print editions in February. Advance Local, which owns NJ Advance Media and NJ.com, home to the publications’ news sites, said they would remain available online.

The Star-Ledger stopped publishing its Saturday newspaper in January, and its circulation has dropped 21 percent so far this year, its leaders said in a statement.