Newspapers in New York, Like Their Readers, Are Vanishing

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But they are fewer and fewer. Domingo Taveras, 55, who works at the Vinmel and Jose Barber Shop on West 110th Street in Manhattan, said he missed the days when customers would read the paper while waiting for a haircut.

“Inside this barber shop, nobody reads The Daily News, or any paper at all, to be honest,” he said.

That includes Mr. Taveras himself. He gets most of his news from NY1 or the occasional copy of The Post he finds lying around. When he reads The Daily News, he does so on his phone. (The News installed a paywall on its website in February. Readership promptly tanked, The Post gleefully reported.)

Mr. Brown, the M.T.A. maintenance worker, said he had noticed The News shift focus to its online content, which is unapologetically heavy on sensational out-of-town news.

“I could see the quality of the coverage was diminishing over time,” Mr. Brown said as he stood near the Municipal Building in Downtown Manhattan. “The recent times that I’ve had the paper in my hands, the print, the quality of the paper, it just didn’t look like The Daily News that I grew up with.”

Monday’s paper was typical Daily News fare, if thinner than it used to be. The cover was an against-the-grain good-news story about a drug addict who got clean at Rikers Island: “JAIL SAVED MY LIFE.” The sports back cover had the Mets pitching ace Noah Syndergaard, who is sidelined with a highly contagious virus, photoshopped into a hazmat suit (“HAZ-MET!”).

In between were follow-ups about the lead-paint scandal in city public housing — a story The News first broke — an update on the Cannibal Cop case and a Hometown Hero profile of a police detective who is “busting barriers and building bridges in the Bronx.”

But Mr. Brown said he would not be buying the paper anytime soon.

He might still read it if he comes across a copy. Then again, he might not.

“With these recent cuts,” he asked, “is it really a newspaper anymore?”

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