| After 125 years as a weekly newspaper and 10 as a monthly magazine, Banker & Tradesman’s sister publication in Connecticut is going digital and will cease print publication.
The Commercial Record is 10 years younger than B&T; the first issue was published in 1882. At the time it was a newspaper containing a week’s worth of real estate transactions and not much else. Over the years its formatting and publication dates changed, and editorial content was added alongside an expanded collection of real estate records.
As its parent company The Warren Group grew, CR – the publication is known affectionately by its initials – expanded to include mortgages, discharges, liens and lis pendens. A Connecticut branch of the company opened, relocated and closed several times over the years, finally for good in the Great Recession. TWG’s intrepid Boston-based reporters began to travel to our neighbor to the south to sniff out the news in residential and commercial real estate, community banking and local politics.
The newspaper became a monthly magazine in 2008, and in its glossy pages reporters continued to bring CR’s readers the news from the Nutmeg State. With the advent of the Internet, the real estate records moved online, with an abbreviated version still appearing in print.
April’s is the final print issue of The Commercial Record. All the news and information continue to be available on the website; the latest real estate records are posted on Thursday mornings.
The Internet, the original disruptor, has changed the world in ways we’re still figuring out – and it has certainly changed the world of print journalism. It has greatly impacted the way news is consumed. It has upended the ways advertisers reach an audience. And it has fairly well obliterated the old model of producing and delivering newspapers.
Converting to a wholly digital environment would afford subscriber access to the latest news and data as quickly as we write it; it would also provide access to the most reliable resource for real estate and financial news from anywhere you are – in the field, in the office, on the train.
At this time there are no plans to cease print publication of Banker & Tradesman, but the possibility always exists. As a respected and venerable news publication with a dedicated staff and strong support from the Warren family, B&T has done better than most newspapers and continues to survive in 2018 – in fact, this year we celebrate our 146th anniversary – but there’s no denying it’s been a rough few years (decades) for journalism, as CR’s online migration illustrates.
In a world of fake news, the newspapers of The Warren Group – The Commercial Record, Banker & Tradesman and Registry Review – seek to keep all of our readers in the know about the latest news and trends in their industries. The newspapers exist to support our readers in their careers and help them make more informed decisions – and yes, sometimes to catch up on the gossip. In whatever format the future brings, the staff of TWG looks forward to continuing to do so for the next 146 years.
