“Fred was the Ledger,” said Linda Shepherd, a former Ledger editor. “For Braintree, they’ve lost their news. Going forward, I don’t think anybody will have their ear to the ground the way Fred did.”
Across the nation, local newspapers have struggled to adapt to the digital age as readers moved their attention away from print. Advertising shifted too, which has left newspapers without the print advertising revenue that sustained them for decades.
Over the past several years, thousands of journalists have lost their jobs and local newsrooms have been hardest hit. More than half of US counties have either no or limited access to local news, according to a 2023 report from Northwestern University. While new nonprofits and other local newsrooms have cropped up, they often have fewer reporters than the outlets they replaced.
When papers close or contract, communities suffer. Studies show places without strong news coverage often have lower voter participation rates and more cases of corruption.
That makes the loss of a reporter like Hanson that much greater.
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“It’s almost impossible to replace the experience that people like Fred Hanson have,” said Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University. “With his demise, just an unbelievable amount of institutional knowledge goes with him.”
His colleagues and sources alike couldn’t help but notice the significance of the veteran newsman, 67, dying while doing what he always did — covering the often-mundane workings of small-town local government. It’s a job that increasingly fewer people are doing in an ever-shrinking industry.
“Although it was sudden and shocking, I am comforted by the fact that he passed while doing the job that he loved in the town that he loved,” said Joseph Sullivan, the former Braintree mayor.
Hanson was inspired to become a journalist after the Watergate scandal showed the power of journalism to expose wrongdoing and prompt change, his sister Elizabeth Hanson said. When he first started at the Ledger in 1981, American journalism was booming. The Quincy-based paper had a newsroom of more than 200 employees, a former editor said.
Now, the Ledger’s website shows 10 newsroom staffers besides Hanson.
Over the decades, the Ledger changed owners several times and now lacks a physical newsroom after its owner Gannett — which is trying to pay off more than $1 billion in debt after it merged with GateHouse in 2019 — declined to renew its lease this year.
Several of Hanson’s former colleagues and family members described him as a “walking encyclopedia” who could reference old movies and music ranging from Jimmy Buffett to soul. Having never married or had his own children, Hanson was the devoted uncle that “every single one of his nieces and nephews looked up to,” his sister Julie Hanson said. He was also an avid reader. He was so proud of the fact that he read both Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” and Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” that he jokingly posted on Facebook he wanted his obituary to mention it.
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“You didn’t want to play Trivial Pursuit with him,” said Regina Hanson, one of Fred Hanson’s 12 siblings.
But it was Hanson’s intense devotion to and knowledge of the South Shore that distinguished him as a journalist. As other Ledger reporters went on to larger papers like the Globe, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, Hanson stayed on the South Shore.
His most recent beat was covering Braintree and Milton, but he was often the reporter editors would dispatch for breaking news at all times of day, and would cover anything from a restaurant opening to a motel demolition. Hanson’s reporting was always thorough and his editors never got complaints about his stories, his former editors said.
“I don’t think there’s a town on the South Shore that he didn’t cover at one point,” Shepherd said. “The news was his purpose — it was his life.”
Former colleagues said Hanson was committed to his job in a way most reporters were not. His coverage areas weren’t just a beat, they were his lifeblood.
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“There’s a level of importance to having someone at government meetings,” said Chris Walker, a former Ledger reporter who now serves as the chief of staff to the Quincy mayor. “Fred stuck to that all the way through.”
In 2013, Hanson suffered a cardiac arrest while at the gym. He returned to work seven weeks later. He later wrote about his experience with humor and appreciation for the bystanders and medics who saved his life. He wanted his obituary to say he “died again.”
“Reporters frequently write about death,” he wrote in 2015. “They rarely write about their own. Mine came on July 19, 2013. It wasn’t on my list of things to do that day.”
Hanson’s father and paternal grandfather both died suddenly of heart problems at 45 and 55, respectively, he wrote. Hanson had a device called an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator implanted in his heart, he wrote, adding he’d written 700 news stories in the 19 months following the episode.
It was unclear what caused his death Monday, his sister said.
Ken Johnson, a former Ledger editor who worked with Hanson for nearly 40 years, said he “never wanted to be anything but a reporter.”
“As sad as it is,” Johnson said, “it’s somehow fitting that he would die with his boots on.”
Aidan Ryan can be reached at aidan.ryan@globe.com. Follow him @aidanfitzryan.
