The Toledo Blade will print its final edition at the end of the year, unless a buyer steps in before then, according to an email sent by the nearly 200-year-old paper’s current owners to its staff on September 8.

Block Communications, which has held The Blade since 1925, reached the “extremely difficult decision” due to financial considerations, president and chief operating officer Jodi Miehls informed staff, as reported by the paper.

“The Block Family’s continued investment to keep the Blade open is no longer an option,” Miehls wrote. “The financial losses the Blade has endured for years are simply not sustainable.”

Miehls’ notice came after negotiations over a contract late last month.

The NewsGuild, which represents Blade’s staff, said that its Toledo chapter voted down a proposed contract in a 46-25 vote.

“The Company’s proposal would have axed seniority, halved severance for its most experienced employees, and allowed the outsourcing of all Guild work,” said Lillian King, Blade features writer and Toledo NewsGuild bargaining chair. “All content at The Blade could be created or edited with Al, with no protections for journalists or requirements to disclose Al usage to its readers.”

Instead of returning to the bargaining table last week, the NewsGuild said that the Block Communications board decided to sell or shutter the paper.

Block Communications similarly cited financial losses when it announced in January that it would cease publishing another newspaper, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. But about two weeks before it was to shut down in May, Block announced that the nonprofit Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism would buy the newspaper and keep it open.

A team of reporters from The Blade won the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting in 2004 for articles about an elite Army platoon accused of killing unarmed Vietnamese civilians in 1967. Reporters at the newspaper also were finalists for the prestigious journalism award in 2000, again for investigative reporting, and in 2006 in the public service category.

Among the newspaper’s alums was Mildred Wirt Benson, better known to legions of Nancy Drew fans as Carolyn Keene, the original author of the mystery books featuring the plucky amateur detective.

Detroit area reporter Larry Vellequette grew up in Toledo and came of age working at The Blade. He joined April Baer on Stateside to talk about what place the paper occupied in metro Toledo and in journalism throughout the years.

"For decades, the blade was this shining, little outperforming newspaper in a small Midwestern city," Vellequette said. "From a pay standpoint, it's pay rivaled that of you know, the the Cleveland Plain Dealer, much larger paper, Chicago. In this little town. It was a very wonderful place to work and, and especially to, to start a career."

The Blade was founded in 1835 — two years before Toledo was officially incorporated as a city — and says it is the city’s oldest continually operating business. Paul Block Sr., a newspaper mogul, took over the paper in August 1926.

An advertisement printed the day after Block was introduced to the newspaper staff said the date “will long be remembered by us as the beginning of a new era of good will in our association with the Toledo Blade,” along with a list of all of the newspaper’s employees, according to the paper.

“Block Communications Board of Directors and the Block Family are truly disappointed to have reached this point,” Miehls said in Tuesday’s email, just over a hundred years later. “Unfortunately, the realities facing local journalism have left us in this situation.”

Vellequette believes that if The Blade ceases production, it will be a loss for the city and for journalism.

"I think that Toledo, like so many cities, it suffers without a newspaper," he said. "Because you don't have somebody covering the local townships, for example, like we used to. You don't have somebody, you barely have somebody covering City hall. [...] These decisions that are so, so influential and impactful upon our lives are happening now in the dark because newspapers across the country, which traditionally covered these boards and local boards and local politicians have disappeared because people decided that if it was on their phone and it was free, why should I pay for it? [...] It is a tragedy beyond tragedy."

This story was originally published on September 8, and was updated to include an interview with journalist Larry Vellequette that aired on Stateside on September 17.