TRENTON — When New Jersey lawmakers blocked a vote last month on a bill backed by Gov. Chris Christie that would have ended the requirement that legal notices be published in newspapers, it was a rare good news story for the state’s press corps.

Publishers said the bill, which would have let the notices move online, would have cost newspapers $20 million in revenue and perhaps hundreds of journalists’ jobs.

That was in addition to the cutbacks and layoffs that have left the industry feeling as if it were “running up a down escalator,” as Tom Moran, editorial page editor of The Star-Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper, put it.

The Star-Ledger, which almost halved its newsroom eight years ago, has mutated into a digital media company requiring most reporters to reach an ever-increasing quota of page views as part of their compensation. The state’s second-largest paper, The Record, which focuses on its most populous county, Bergen, said it would lay off more than 400 people after it was purchased in July by the Gannett Company (although some were expected to be rehired if they reapplied for their jobs). And that was after it endured a 20 percent cut to the newsroom in 2008.