According to reporting by the Nieman Lab, the newspaper chain Gannett is instructing its newsrooms that, “all sites should adhere to their current print publishing deadlines.”
That means you probably won’t see election results in next Wednesday’s paper. Lebanon Daily News editor Andrea Rich did not respond to a request for comment or confirmation on what the newsroom was planning.
While it is possible that the Lebanon Daily News receives an exemption for this new policy, the odds don’t seem favorable. Lebanon is one of the company’s smaller markets, and the paper already “closes” earlier relative to most, as an accommodation for the fact that the paper is printed in Wilmington, DE, and needs to travel at least an hour to reach the distribution center.
Ken Doctor, who reported the article for Nieman Lab, concludes that the decision is meant to control costs and push readers online. The memo says that paywalls will also be dropped for 48 hours around Election Day.
The Gannett election hub is already live on the Daily News site, accessible here.