Guam Daily Post reporter Oya Ngirairikl interviews a soldier from 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery following a live-fire exercise on Palau, June 15, 2022. (Nicholas Chopp/U.S. Army)
News consumers on Guam have one less option available on the small U.S. territory after the Pacific Daily News published its final print edition on March 31.
Meanwhile, the paper's main competitor, the Guam Daily Post, stopped selling printed copies in the island’s 11 Navy Exchange stores in January, exchange spokeswoman Kristine Sturkie said in an email June 20.
The Pacific Daily News — founded in 1950 as the Guam Daily News — based the decision to curtail its print edition on readership trends and resources, according to a March 27 statement on its website. It had suspended its Saturday and Sunday editions in January.
“Guam’s readers have shown us that they prefer to receive their news via our digital platforms,” Rindraty Celes Limtiaco, the newspaper’s president, said in the statement. She promised to continue producing “the best news content on Guam.”
Former Daily News publisher Lee Webber called the move a “cruel joke.”
“With the death of the Pacific Daily News print edition, we are once again a community with only one daily newspaper of general circulation,” he wrote in a May 2 opinion piece. “Even more importantly, we are dealing with a fourth estate that has lost track of its original and much-needed purpose in a democratic republic. That of being the watchdog on government, community informant and a beacon of freedom for its readership.”
During the past 20 years, more than 200 local daily newspapers have either reduced their publication frequency or ceased publishing altogether, according to a May 24 report by the Congressional Research Service.
Most Americans get at least some of their news from digital devices, according to a 2022 survey by the Pew Research Center.
The Post continues to print a newspaper on the island of 170,000, including 18,000 active-duty service members and their families.
The paper remains dedicated to a print product, executive editor Phill Leon Guerrero told Stars and Stripes by phone earlier this month.
Though it’s no longer available at the Navy Exchanges, the Post can be purchased from a coin-operated box at the Wendy’s restaurant on Naval Base Guam and island-wide through home delivery, a service that includes U.S. military installations, Guerrero said.
"We're in plenty of places," he said, adding that the Post sees heavy traffic online from military communities.
The Post has never been sold by the Army & Air Force Exchange Service at Andersen Air Force Base, according to AAFES spokesman Chris Ward.
While the paper has not yet been sold on Marine Corps Camp Blaz, which is still under construction, Guerrero hopes to expand readership there soon, he said.
The Post was founded in 2004 as the Guam edition of Marianas Variety, Guerrero said. It has just over 10,000 print subscribers, 7,500 digital subscribers and receives more than 1.5 million page views per month on its website.
The Daily News boasts more than 3 million page views a month on its digital platforms and 250,000 followers on Facebook and Instagram, according to its statement. It also provides a text alert service with 30,000 subscribers.
