Alternative weekly newspapers are going out of business all over the country, leaving a huge void in local government coverage. Who will scrutinize city halls now?
By Daniel C. Vock | Governing
The front page of the Philadelphia City Paper’s final issue, which came out in early October, showed a typewriter sitting on a desk and a simple message: “Goodbye, Philadelphia.” The old-school image carried both sentimental and symbolic value. The black Royal typewriter in the picture originally belonged to the alternative newsweekly’s first publisher when he helped found the paper in 1981. Somehow it stayed with the staff, even through four office moves, as new technologies rendered it completely obsolete, and as the weekly’s circulation climbed to 300,000 in the mid 1990s and then dwindled to 56,000 by the time it ceased publishing.
