SOUTHBURY — Voices, one of the last remaining traditional weekly print newspapers covering Southbury and its surrounding communities, has printed its final edition Wednesday, Nov. 4, ending a nearly six-decade run.
Prime Publishers Inc., the paper’s owner, cited “dramatic cost increases” for printing, trucking, postage and other expenses, along with a steady decline in advertising revenue. In a notice to readers signed by Executive Editor Kurt Mazurosky, the company described ending the print edition “the tough decision”.
The free community weekly paper, first published in 1968, landed in mailboxes on Wednesdays, and served Southbury, Middlebury, Naugatuck, Oxford, Seymour, Woodbury, Bethlehem, Roxbury, Sandy Hook and Newtown.
Voices website, voicesnews.com, will keep operating “for the foreseeable future”, according to the notice. However, “reporter news coverage will be suspended.”
Questions about how many employees are affected and when they were informed about the decision went unanswered Wednesday morning. A man at the newspaper’s Heritage Road offices declined to comment.
Paid obituaries and classified advertising will continue to be offered online, according to the notice. The Voices e-Edition will no longer be available, although readers can still access the most recent 14 days of content for free.
The end of Voices’ print edition follows that of the Town Times, a sister newspaper that served Watertown and Oakville since 1947. Prime Publishers ended its weekly mailed edition in October 2025, citing nearly identical reasons.
A report released last month by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism found that 170 newspapers closed or merged in the past year, up from 136 closures reported the previous year.
Wednesday’s notice thanked readers for donations sent in to help keep the operation afloat since the pandemic of 2020.
“We could not be more grateful,” the notice said. “It breaks our hearts to stop the presses.”
By Evan Triantafilidis
