MLive Media Group plans to cease print editions of its eight newspapers across Michigan, some of which have been rolling off presses for more than a century.
The Grand Rapids-based publisher said Dec. 6, 2026 will mark the final print copies of The Ann Arbor News, The Bay City Times, The Flint Journal, The Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle and The Saginaw News.
All eight will continue to publish online, through email newsletters and through social media channels. The move is expected to lead to one job loss and an end to contracts with people who delivered the print editions, the company said.
"This transition is dictated by our readers’ overwhelming adoption of our news in digital formats,” MLive
Community President John Hiner said in a story Wednesday, Sept. 2.
MLive's parent company, New York-based Advance Local, ended print editions at its papers in Alabama in 2023 and in New Jersey in 2025.
Cox Enterprises, owner of the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, published that paper's final print edition Dec. 31, 2025.
The move is part of a larger trend among publishers said Jeremy Steele, associate director of the School of Journalism at Michigan State University.
"I'm not surprised given the trends that we're seeing in the way that news consumers are getting information and that is increasingly through digital platforms and less through some of the legacy forms of media like print," Steele said. "The trends are pretty clear that print newspapers, as we knew them, are changing and are changing very rapidly."
Steele said he grew up reading The Grand Rapids Press after school, so the loss strikes home to him, but he also sees a rising generation of news consumers, including journalism students, on his campus every day.
"We see younger generations, they're staring at a screen, they're staring at their phone, maybe they've got a tablet or their computer screen," he said. "They're not walking around campus in large numbers with a newspaper under their arm or with a magazine or another product."
There's still a place for print, Steele said.
"Where print still seems to have a lot of success is in more targeted communities, smaller communities, niche communities," he said. "Places where you clearly got a focused audience that wants print. But I think as sort of a mass consumer vehicle, print is becoming less effective."
Contact John Wisely: jwisely@freepress.com. On X: @jwisely
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: MLive ending print editions for 8 newspapers
