Cambridge: A city cowering in fear

Then British standards are factually incorrect.

At one time [circa late 19th C until perhaps 75 years ago] there were many papers -- each with its own editorial viewpoint agreeing with the buyers/readers' lifestyle, major advertisers [mostly the big 7 or so Department Stores] and mostly located on/near Newspaper Row at the edge of the Financial District. The papers active [at one time] over the past 100+ years include [the with the common "Boston" omitted]:

• The Herald
• The Traveler
• The Journal
• The Daily Record
• The Evening American
• The Daily Advertiser
• The Globe
• The Evening Transcript
• The Journal
• The Post
• The Investigator

from the Wikipedia article on Newspaper Row

In its first incarnation, Newspaper Row was located between State and Water Streets, in the financial district. But gradually, as the city expanded and more department stores and other businesses opened in the vicinity of Washington Street, the major newspapers moved closer to the center of commerce. By the early 1900s, according to the Boston City Directory, the Boston Globe was at 244 Washington Street, the Boston Evening Transcript was at 324 Washington (at Milk Street), the Boston Post was at 261 Washington Street, the Boston Journal was at 264 Washington Street, the Boston American was at 80-82 Summer Street, and the Associated Press was at 293 Washington Street. Other Boston news services, including the Boston Herald and Boston Traveler, were not far from Newspaper Row.

Note -- with the advent of Radio 30's and then Television 50's most lost their lock on advertisers and then folded -- some merged -- i.e. [Herald with the Traveler and the Record with the American]. A second burst of failures and consolidations happened as the new technology dominated economy grew rapidly first Rt-128 and then later out Rt-2 [the Computer Commuter], I-495 and then I-93 toward and into NH [Raytheon]:

1. Boston population dropped,
2. the Downtown emptied out
3. the big Department Stores closed
4. the old Boston city was being demolished to make room for "Urban Renewal"
5. Newspapers disappeared or consolidated [e.g. Boston Herald American from the Record-American and the Herald] and moved away from "Newspaper Row" [In 1958, the Globe opened its Morrissey Boulevard Hq complex with both printing and editorial offices]

All that was left in the Boston newspaper world [circa 1990] was:

1. the "venerable Globe" [although no-longer locally owned -- NY Times purchased it in 1993]
2. and the Herald [the result of final act of consolidation of the Record American with the Herald Traveler]. There were numerous changes of ownership of the paper and its associated Radio and TV stations [WHDH] -- a powerful innovative media combine undermined by local politics leading to a chain of events:
   1. Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy included language in an appropriations bill barring one company from owning a newspaper and television station in the same market which effectively "canceled" the new Herald and its TV station
   2. giving birth ironically to the Hearst Media's Channel 5 TV WCVB as Hearst had once owned the Record.
   3. Later on remnants of the once powerful Herald -- near to financial collapse -- suffered the ignominy of forced sale and later bankruptcy auction.
   4. Today the vestigial remnants of the venerable Herald [dating to downtown Boston before the Civil War] is now edited in a Braintree office park and printed by a contractor -- somewhere??
   5. Herald today is owned by Alden Global Capital operating as Digital First Media (DFM) formerly known as MediaNews Group which now also owns [as of 2022] Tribune Publishing [collectively the second-largest newspaper publisher by daily print circulation in the United States].

By the "Cable" / www era [circa 2000 - 2010] --- Even the survivor newspapers had abandoned the downtown for "terra incognito" [i.e. Morrisey Blvd, Seaport District] -- not just for their printing plants [Globe moved printing to Taunton from Morrisey Blvd. and the Herald was being printed by the Globe] but for their editorial offices [Herald in the Seaport District]. Meanwhile Local TV Stations -- mostly located in the suburbs -- became the newspapers' replacement controlling all of the advertising market. Strange weekly advertising circulars took over most of the revenue of the print distribution.

Now, circa 2020 -- the TV dominated news economy is once again in rapid change mode with much of the advertising now delivered by social media. Also rapidly changing are the demographics of news/advertiser consumers and the real-estate associated with the media [the Globe editorial offices are back to downtown -- on State St. -- almost where Newspaper Row began -0- but the Globe's printing plant is gone completely from Massachusetts to Rhode Island and Morrisey Blvd., is being redeveloped into Biotech] while the Herald's long-time post-"Newspaper Row" home on Herald St is becoming mostly luxury condos.

Come back in 2030 -- as today no one can confidently predict what the final outcome will look like.