In a headline across the front page of its Business section to get some serious attention, the Baltimore Sun announces new devotion to the business of being an actual newspaper.
The headline on Friday, Mar. 28, reads, “The Baltimore Sun, Fox 45, WJLA Expanding ‘Spotlight on Maryland.’”
As the paper explains it, the three corporate partners are “expanding an investigative team created to provide impactful reporting that holds Maryland institutions to account.”
This raises a fundamental question about journalism itself: What is it they’ve been doing up until now, if not “impactful reporting that holds Maryland institutions to account”?
That’s the heart of real reporting, isn’t it?
If the heart of Friday’s story is just to tell us they’re expanding their efforts, well, there’s an old expression: don’t tell us. Show us. Don’t brag about it in advance.
Because while The Sun is now claiming to “expand” efforts by the newspaper (and its TV partners), the truth is that the paper has done nothing but downsize its efforts over the past decade and more.
A newsroom once boasting of more than 400 editorial people has been ripped apart and reduced in recent years to about 50. Now, the paper announces, it will add “up to 20 new investigative reporters.”
Presumably, that means 20 reporters spread among the three outlets.
The announcement comes on the heels of a lengthy Mar. 7 piece in The Baltimore Banner marking a year since Sinclair Broadcasting owner David Smith purchased The Sun. The piece indicates, in raw numbers, that Sun readers have reacted to all the paper’s recent cuts by canceling their subscriptions.
“The city’s largest newspaper has seen a significant drop in its readership,” The Banner reported. “At least 20 journalists have left the paper in the last year … with several of them citing problems with the political slant of the stories presented under its new ownership. In particular, they pointed to The Sun’s use of stories from Fox 45, a TV station owned by Smith’s right-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group.”
In its heyday, The Sun’s daily circulation generally hovered around 200,000, and its Sunday circulation was nearly twice that figure.
By late 2024, The Banner reported, average daily circulation was 17,594 and Sunday circulation was 42,522. Those are print numbers, and they’re astonishing, even taken in context of the declining numbers of newspapers across the country.
But even the paper’s digital numbers are dismal.
“In February, 2024, the month after the sale [to Smith], The Sun saw 41% fewer unique visitors to its website compared to February 2023,” reported The Banner.
Nobody’s cheering these developments. At its best, The Sun was one of America’s finest, most reliable newspapers. The paper helped make Baltimore feel big-league.
The paper can claim a new devotion to serious reporting. But it makes all readers wonder: what have they been doing up until now?
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).
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