The Sun Journal said Friday that it will stop printing in Lewiston after 125 years and consolidate printing and distribution into a facility in South Portland on June 1.
The closure affects 45 employees, the newspaper said. All 11 full-time people working in the pressroom have been offered positions in South Portland. Distribution employees can apply for work in South Portland, with a goal of placing as many people as are interested.
The move means that all of the state’s daily newspapers will be printed in the same South Portland facility. Masthead Maine owns the Sun Journal and the Portland Press Herald. The Bangor Daily News has a contract to be printed in Lewiston, but it will be included in the move.
“There is expected to be no impact on BDN print subscribers or readers at this time,” said Mike Dowd, director of print operations for the Bangor Daily News, the last independently owned daily newspaper in the state.
Masthead Maine Publisher and CEO Lisa DeSisto said it didn’t make sense to invest in two different facilities and the equipment in Lewiston was continuing to age. She said the South Portland location has two newer presses that seldom operate at the same time. Readers won’t see a change in delivery times, she said.
“This is driven by what makes sense from a financial perspective for the future,” she told the Sun Journal in an article Friday announcing the move.
Declining readership and ads, along with competition from online news, have forced one in five U.S. newspapers, or close to 1,800, out of business since 2004, according to a 2018 University of North Carolina study. The past year added to the woes as advertising softened as businesses struggled with pandemic restrictions.