Last Friday’s paper was only 20 pages and featured just two local news stories from two local news reporters on its front page. Recent reports showed the State Journal’s print circulation has declined almost annually for the last two decades, dropping to an all-time readership low in September to an average of about 17,500 newspapers published on Sundays and only about 11,000 copies printed on weekdays - marking an 84% drop since 2001 and the first time that the State Journal’s Sunday press run has ever dipped below 20,000 copies, according to the latest print circulation reports from the Alliance for Audited Media, an independent nonprofit widely used by mainstream newspapers. Today, the Lansing State Journal is much smaller in virtually every way, from the size of the page to the size of the staff - all driven or traceable to its plummeting circulation numbers. Dwindling circulation has kept some downtown Lansing LSJ distribution boxes empty for years.
