Perhaps WGx’s surprisingly prescient prediction from the 2007 Neighborhood Wrap-Up has come true:

Did anyone else notice that the Rose Garden is starting to look a little more like WG? Or perhaps it’s the other way around. … For example, Linda Taffe is the new editor of the WG Resident, replacing Moryt Milo earlier this year; Linda also edits the RG Resident.

Since then, the Willow Glen Resident and the Rose Garden Resident have essentially become the same paper.

Maybe this WGx headline is only an April Fool’s joke …. or is it? Read the papers yourself; then decide.

The decline in the SJ Mercury News has been a recent topic of heated discussion on the WGNA eList, and has even garnered attention from newsrooms around the country as the traditional newspaper business model potentially collapses.

The reduction in SJMN quality seems to be impacting the SVCN group as well. Stories no longer belong to just one community, and the Residents’ reporters are regularly addressing topics that used to be more appropriate for the valley-wide parent paper. City-wide budget cuts aren’t the realm of a neighborhood weekly, but recently they don’t seem to be within the purview of the Mercury, either.

In a totally unscientific investigation, WGx has concluded that the only significant difference between the two papers — and many of the other five “San Jose Residents” — is the advertising mix. For the most part, this has been the case since January.

Their websites aren’t any different either, except for the URL and the banner artwork.

As added to the comments on a SanJoseInside post:

#12: Lost in the Merc’s obvious slide has been the similar decline in the SVCN Group papers, including the LG ‘Weekly’ Times, Campbell Reporter, and the seventy-three “Neighborhood Residentsâ€? … most of which look just like each other now, except for advertising.

Any word on their staffs?

Posted by Neighborhood Resident, Wednesday, March 12 at 08:06 PM

That comment from “Neighborhood Resident” — while SVCN staff were apparently spared the most-recent cuts — garnered further publication in this week’s Metro “Mash-Up” section and a response from another SJI commenter:

#18: #12—Yes, thank you David Cohen for destroying the valley’s competitive news landscape. The community newspapers, along with Metro,** used to be true competitors to the valley news monopoly. This probably should have warranted a DOJ monopoly investigation, but no one really noticed.

Posted by Independence Day in San Jose, Tuesday, March 18 at 11:34 AM

** WGx Note: You can argue whether Metro has or has not become less journalistic recently, but there is no argument about its status: It’s not affiliated with SVCN or David Cohen. Metro is published by Dan Pulcrano, who is under attack for different reasons.