The Tri-Lakes Has Two Fewer Independent Newspapers Than It Did Four Months Ago.

In February, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise and the Lake Placid News were sold to Gazette News Group, a Schenectady-based company that has been quietly assembling a portfolio of upstate New York newspapers. The deal closed March 2. The Enterprise's printing press — which has been running in Saranac Lake since 1895 — was not included in the sale.

Then last week, the Press-Republican announced it would cut to three print days starting June 16.

Both transactions came with reassurances. Gazette News Group owner John DeAugustine said he intended to keep as many staff as possible and called the Enterprise and the Lake Placid News exemplary community journalism. The Press-Republican said it remains committed to being the number one news source in Clinton, Essex, and Franklin counties. These are the things you say when you're consolidating.

What's actually happening is simpler. The economics of print are forcing decisions that readers don't get to vote on. The Enterprise has been owned by Ogden Newspapers — a West Virginia family company — since 1978. Now it belongs to a regional chain based three hours south. The Lake Placid News went with it. The P-R, owned by Community Newspaper Holdings, is cutting production without cutting its subscription price.

Local journalism in the Tri-Lakes isn't dying. It's being managed from farther and farther away by people with no particular attachment to whether Saranac Lake has a functioning government.

Tri-Lakes Town Square launched in April. It costs nothing to read and nothing to run. We are not going anywhere.