Troy

Two years before Troy became Troy, the city's first newspaper office opened in 1787. Sometime next month, that 232-year streak will come to an end when The Record newspaper closes its small, rented office on River Street.

That will mark the first time the city has not served as a location for a newspaper office since a paper called the Northern Budget opened in 1787, said Stacy Pomeroy Draper, curator of the Rensselaer County Historical Society.

At that time, Troy was still called Vanderheyden to reflect its Dutch founding. The municipality's name change was made two years later after a vote by its several hundred residents.

Management at The Record, which first started publishing in the city in 1896, said once the River Street office is closed, staffers would work digitally without a central location. The newspaper will continue to publish its printed edition and post to its website.

"Our commitment to The Record's readers is strong," Ron Rosner, senior editor of the Troy Record and The Saratogian, wrote in a column Saturday. "We have served Troy and the region for more than a century and we take our role as an institution in the area quite seriously. With this initiative, we will keep that tradition alive and stronger than ever."

Rosner wrote that The Record office would be closing by the end of February so staffers could be "positioned in or around the Capital Region." An email contact list included in Rosner's statement consisted of five staffers, including himself.

City Editor Nicholas Buonanno declined comment, referring questions to Rosner, who declined to say anything beyond his written statement.

"Troy has a long history of having newspapers in it," said Draper. The U.S. Library of Congress lists 28 different newspapers that have called Troy their home since the 18th century, including one that was published in the German language.

"Some immigrant groups to the city in the 19th century would start their own papers," Draper said.

After news of the closure become public on social media, the owner of a Troy public relations firm offered to provide Record reporters with a place to work.

Tom Nardacci, CEO of Gramercy Communications and owner of the Troy Innovation Garage co-working space, wrote that he intended to offer space in his downtown offices to reporters.

Nardacci's post, on the Troy Neighborhoods Action Council's public facebook page states: "The local coffee shop, while always accommodating, is not the place to send a team to work. It's fundamentally unfair that they shoulder the costs, and to do it for a large corporation. Souldn't [sic] the company directing this policy pay these local coffee shops. That said I'm going to reach out to the reporters and let them know they can work from our space (Troy Innovation Garage) downtown anytime they need. Flexible workspace exists. We need a local daily newspaper."

That drew a rebuke from another public relations firm owner, Duncan Crary, who said such an arrangement would pose an unacceptable conflict-of-interest for the newspaper and its reporters.

"Your heart may be in the right place," Crary states in his reply,"but it would be problematic for the reporters of The Record to work out of a building/business that is owned, occupied, managed and marketed by a PR Firm."

The Record's closing of its office comes three years after the newspaper left its longtime downtown headquarters at 501 Broadway. The closure followed years of staffing cuts. After the building was sold by the newspaper's owners, Digital First Media (DFM), it was converted into high-end apartments.

Since 2012, a New York City-based hedge fund, Alden Global Capital, has been the primary owner of DFM, which also owns The Saratogian newspaper.

In April 2013, DFM sold The Record building on Broadway for $2.65 million, according to Rensselaer County real estate records.

The Saratogian's downtown office off the busy Broadway corridor closed in August 2017 after being sold. That newspaper still has a small rented office in the city.

Since DFM took ownership of the former Journal Register newspaper chain, staff at DFM newspapers has been cut by more than 50 percent, more than double the industry average, according to a study by The News Guild, a national union representing newspaper workers.

Since 2013, an Alden Global Capital affiliate has sold more than 125 DFM newspaper-related properties in 23 states, worth a total of $230.2 million, according to the News Guild report.