The paper is owned by
Digital First Media, a media company headquartered in
Denver, Colorado, specializing in
newspaper publishing, which owns 75 daily and several hundred non-daily newspapers in the United States. DFM was formed as a merger between Media News Group (MNG) and Journal Register Company (JRC). In November 2008, DFM announced that some of its newspapers, including The Trentonian, were being put up for sale. The newspaper's daily price increased 43 percent, from 35 cents to 50 cents. Also, the company announced that
The Trentonian would no longer be printed in Trenton beginning in January 2009. It will be printed at a JRC-owned facility in
Exton, Pennsylvania and delivered to Trenton.
The Trentonian was known as a feisty, gritty tabloid from its start in 1945 when 40 members of the
International Typographical Union broke away from the
Trenton Times to start their paper. When The Washington Post Company bought the
Times in 1975, Katharine Graham vowed to make Trenton a one-paper town. She reportedly would later admit that Trenton was her "Vietnam." The Trentonian generated community outrage and criticism when it published a front-page headline, “Roasted Nuts!” about a fire at a state institution housing developmentally disabled patients. The book
Tabloid From Hell details what the author considers to be the decline of
The Trentonian, with much of the blame directed at Robert M. Jelenic, JRC's former CEO, whom the author says spent too much time on discipline and trivial matters, not enough on quality journalism. A Mary Walton interview in
American Journalism Review was also critical of Jelenic. ==Awards and recognition==