Goodbye, alt-weeklies

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Two weeks ago, the 46-year-old alternative weekly the Boston Phoenix vanished in a puff of newsprint, leaving in its place a new publication called simply The Phoenix, a news-culture-lifestyle magazine as glossy as the new condominium buildings sprouting in once working-class Southie. The city's name -- the sense of place -- simply disappeared. The loss was a long time for coming.

For decades, alt-weeklies have been giving hell to incompetent mayors, evil developers, and lapdog city council members with the kind of righteous rage lots of us eventually outgrow. "It's the best damn journalism in America outside of a monthly national magazine," says Fran Zankowski, president of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN).

Salon.com > alternative media

Goodbye, alt-weeklies