So few two-newspaper towns survive the dearth of advertising support and competition for attention in this digital age that a discussion over the last remaining US joint operating agreement seems academic.

Prime audiences in the UK were carved up between media moguls decades ago, and in Australia there are a few tales told about how News mastheads came out on top in every city bar Perth (we’ll agree to argue about Sydney).

Which made it interesting this week to see former editor of (now Nine’s) The Age Michael Gawenda take to News’ The Australian to criticise a cartoon in his old paper.

But this is about the US, where a ‘newspaper preservation act’ was passed in 1970 to protect partnering newspapers from antitrust laws, and where the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press merged their circulation and ad operations while maintaining editorial independence from each other.

That last of the 28 joint operating agreements established under the federal law, expired at the end of last month, and there’s inevitably speculation about whether each of the emerging independent publishers is right to try to ‘go it alone’.

The parties here are what is now USA Today Co (formerly Gannett) for the Free Press, and which ran business operations for both it and the News, which is owned by Digital First Media’s MediaNews Group. A Sunday edition of the Free Press included a section produced by the News.

While both papers are leaner than they were, a Nieman Lab survey last year declared them both healthy and among the country’s top 25 regional newspaper sites.

Historically, the JOA brought savings of hundreds of jobs, but when Gannett sold the News to MNG in 2005 on its acquisition of the Free Press, a revised operating agreement was established that expired last year. Columbia Journalism Review reported that both papers’ editorial staff “hadn’t been given a reason for the end of the agreement other than the contract term being up”.

It’s expected that the outcome will be one of the papers “outcompeting the other,” as CJR puts it. Both publishers bring their own group assets to the table. A restart of News’ Sunday edition had been announced (but is now delayed), and CJR quotes its Nolan Finley, looking forward to “the resumption of hostilities” and the return of a battle “unencumbered by justice department restraints”.

As they separate, it’s not back-office and production costs, but the costs of competition – from which they won’t be able to help themselves – that pose the biggest threat.

The Sterling Heights printing plant the Detroit News opened in 1976 closed last August with the loss of 113 jobs, and as the two papers go their own ways, it’s expected they – along with copies of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other titles – may be trucked separately to readers. Printing of the News is expected to settle at MNG’s Chicago Tribune plant while reports insist plans are for the Free Press to come from MNG in Canton, Ohio.

In Australia, a now less distinctive Nine stable (which includes the Australian Financial Review, at least outside WA) protects itself from print cost variables with an agreement with News Corp, while also limiting its flexibility and potential.

It will be interesting to see how the Detroit market develops, and what we can learn from it. In the meantime, thoughts turn to Machiavelli (or Michael Corleone if you must): ‘Keep your friends close but your enemies closer’.

Peter Coleman