Charleston’s rival newspapers just merged. Is two-paper Detroit next?

The sudden merger of two newspapers in Charleston (WV) was big media news in that city. It also resonated here in Detroit (MI), more than 350 miles away, for one major reason: The Motor City is one of the few two-paper towns left in the US, and that small group is now even smaller. As Charleston’s Gazette and Daily Mail become the Gazette-Mail, is that a sign that Detroit’s News and Free Press might soon follow the same path? If that’s the eventual outcome -- and that’s still a big if -- it might not be the worst outcome for journalism here. But it would likely come with a cost.

Though editorially independent, the Gazette and Daily Mail have been linked since 1958, when their business and production arms were combined in a joint operating agreement. After the family-owned Gazette’s parent company moved in 2004 to take control of the Daily Mail, the US Department of Justice filed an anti-trust lawsuit to preserve the competition between the two papers. This led to a 2010 settlement that required the Daily Mail to continue publishing as a separate paper for five years. That settlement expired on July 19 -- the very day that Charleston staffers learned that the merger was imminent. The new paper launched less than 24 hours later.