Another Press Stopped

Having written for a few alternative weeklies -- including Bills game-day coverage through the 00s -- and other low-budget media operations, it sucks to see one that, along with the Village Voice, defined the medium succumb to natural causes.

During its 47-year run, the Boston Phoenix provided its readers with journalism from future Pulitzer Prize winners alongside the finest in skeevish adult advertising. After years of financial trouble and a recent full format change, The Phoenix -- which was successful enough to spin off  sister papers in Providence, R.I., and Portland, Maine -- announced its own demise.

The cause of death is the same as for every departed print outlet -- the digital revolution and the resulting remaking of media advertising models, dwindling attention spans and the ultimate authority of the bottom line.

From the obituary written by Phoenix alum Camille Dodero:

So yes, yesterday, we lost the paper whose name appeared on so many imposing resumes. We lost the paper that bred Pulitzer Prize winners, that was responsible for breaking the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal. But we also lost a place where kids who were never supposed to be writers and reporters and photographers and illustrators and storytellers could start out by refusing to leave the building, people whose parents didn't have the money to help with rent while they struggled to make their long-term pathways better, and try, however minutely, to change things. 

What we lost Thursday was Clif Garbonden's dream. The world is a far worse place without it. Fuck. 

In the end, the surprise of the Phoenix's death is not that it happened, but that it took this long.