Nyack's print newspapers are fading away

I don't think many area residents stop to pick up the local newspaper anymore. Is there a local daily paper anymore?

Certainly, more of us are getting "newsbreaks" over the wires. Services like Nyack Patch have taken over in our modern world of "faster" living and instant information. But it wasn't always that way.

On Saturday, August 3, 1850, John Charlton began publishing The Rockland County Journal in Nyack. His motto was: "Light, more light!" Then there was The People's Advocate, which lasted for three issues and then changed its name to the Nyack City & Country. A weekly paper was also published from 1859 to 1912 and then again from 1913 to 1921. A sideline of the Rockland Newsprint Company was printed every Friday from an office on the corner of Main and Broadway—a year's subscription cost $2.50. Robert Carpenter was the owner with Peter Snow the editor. The paper was sold out of the Nyack News Depot operated by John C. Haselbarth.

William C. Haselbarth purchased the original Nyack paper and renamed it The Nyack Evening Journal on May 8, 1880. His paper cost a reader $5 a year. In 1889, William's son Adam Haselbarth changed the name and began publishing The Rockland County Evening Journal. The paper was also a weekly, and was converted to the first daily newspaper in Rockland County. In 1916, Governor Morris Carnochen, owner of the Nyack Evening Star, purchased the paper. The newspapers merged and the Star was dropped. 

The paper again merged in 1932 with the Nyack Daily News to form the Nyack Journal News. The name of the paper was changed to the Rockland Journal News in 1932 with offices at 53 Hudson Ave. in the village. Gannett Newspapers purchased the paper in 1982 and soon moved the offices to West Nyack ending more than a century of a local Nyack Paper.

There have been a few attempts to start another daily paper in the village, but it seems the hand-writing has been on-the-wall for years. Daily newspaper in print are fading fast. I guess we can all thank the inventors of the Internet. (No, I don't think it was Al Gore).