Lately, readers of The New Hampshire Gazette may have noticed that the newspaper is a little lighter than usual. They may have also noticed that some of their favorite features have been omitted from recent issues. That’s because as of this month, the biweekly publication, trademarked as the nation’s oldest newspaper, went from 16 pages to eight. But, while the Gazette may look a little thin these days, the content is as robust as ever, according to publisher Steven Fowle.

“I’ve always compared the Gazette to a motorcycle. It is stripped down to the essentials and it will go like hell,” he said.
Fowle’s decision to shave off some pages came as a result of limited resources and the desire to concentrate more on the Gazette’s Web site, www.nhgazette.com. Slimming the paper also enables Fowle to send it to subscribers by first class mail for 41 cents per issue.

“At that point, the temptation was too much to resist,” Fowle said. “That required that we throw some features overboard, which was really the only difficult part of the decision.”

Sections that didn’t make the cut include two columns by local historian Dennis Robinson: “History Matters” and “Robinson’s Favorites,” as well as the calendar and a “Free the Media” section.

Although most of the papers are distributed on the Seacoast, The New Hampshire Gazette enjoys a readership that extends throughout the United States. However, mailing papers across the country proved to be a burden, with some readers receiving their copies two weeks after it was published.

This isn’t the first time the Gazette has changed its format. When Fowle took the helm in 1990, the paper had slipped into stagnation.

“Between 1990 and 1999, it was much smaller and the frequency of publication was episodical as opposed to periodical,” he said.

Since 1999, the paper has adopted a more regular schedule, coming out every two weeks. But the number of pages has continued to vary. At one point, it was up to 20 pages. Now, with the page count back down to eight, Fowle has reduced the mailing cost and cut his daily workload.

“Eight pages of truth is about as much as most people can handle anyway,” he said.

With the extra time, Fowle plans to concentrate on the Web site. He believes Web-based, non-corporate journalism could be the savior of independent media.

“We’re so immersed in hogwash that it’s created an enormous demand for something that makes an effort to get at the truth. I don’t claim that the Gazette has any special access to wisdom, but because we’re not owned by some massive corporation, we have the freedom to state the obvious. And in the current media landscape, all I can say is there is a huge demand for it,” he said.

The paper’s front-page “Fortnightly Rant” will remain intact. The column exemplifies the Gazette’s no-holds-barred approach of reporting the news as Fowle sees it.

“To the extent that the Gazette has any power, it is the power to ignore or transgress the defined limits of reality as they’re put forward by the more commercially minded media, like the award winning local daily or Channel 9, where there are certain standards of piety and reverence that have to be extended to certain human institutions, however ridiculous they may be,” Fowle said. 

Although the Gazette now has fewer pages, each page is now two inches taller than in the old format. With those added inches, the paper has the equivalent of nine pages of total surface area.

“There is no cause for alarm here. It’s fair to shed a tear. In a more perfect world, everyone would have better eyesight and we could make the print smaller,” Fowle said. He regrets having to cut certain sections. “All of those things had their readers and I’m sorry to take that away. I am. But as the decider around here, such were my decisions.”