Daniel Sforza, the executive editor of The (Bergen) Record and the state editor of Gannett’s other daily newspapers, is departing within the next month, leaving questions about the struggling chain’s future as it struggles to sell newspapers in a digital age, the New Jersey Globe has confirmed.
The reason for Sforza’s rumored exit is unclear. A spokesperson for Gannett declined to comment this morning, but Sforza has already informed colleagues.
If Sforza leaves, it comes after a troubled record at the helm.
In 2021, journalists for the Bergen Record, along with the Daily Record and the New Jersey Herald, voted overwhelmingly to unionize, with Sforza, perhaps with no choice, facing allegations of union busting.
Employees at six Gannett newspapers in New Jersey, including the Bergen Record, Daily Record, and New Jersey Herald, staged a one-day strike in November 2022, four days before the midterm election. The same six newspapers saw a second one-day walkout in June 2023, the day before the primary election.
A 2025 walkout was averted after Gannett finally agreed to a contract after a four-year wait. More than half of the journalists who signed the initial letter agreeing to unionize had already departed.
In June, New Jersey eliminated mandates that local and county governments publish public notices in newspapers, a move that could significantly impact revenues.
A few New Jersey-based journalists have taken Gannett’s latest buyout offer, but it’s not immediately clear who.
Print circulation for the Bergen Record has plummeted since Gannett bought the newspaper from the Borg family for a reported $39.3 million, from 136,074 daily newspapers at the end of 2016 to just 14,196 at the end of last year.
Sforza, 54, has been with The Record since 1994, and became executive editor in 2018 after a series of corporate transitions that followed Gannett’s purchase of the newspaper two years earlier. He is also the executive editor of the Daily Record and the New Jersey Herald.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will transition entirely to digital at the end of this year, becoming one of the largest U.S. newspapers to discontinue print editions. The Star-Ledger ended its print publications in February while shuttering its editorial board and closing several dailies, including the Jersey Journal and the Trenton Times.
When the Star-Ledger stopped printing newspapers, Sforza insisted it had no plans to follow them.
