Next up: Portland, ME...the whole f*cking operation?

Well isn't this special. Remember when it seemed impossible that an entire paper could fold?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2008/08/15/a_maine_beacon_blinks/

Sums up the whole business in one story, especially the part about communities no longer having watchdogs.

Portland's an awesome small city newspaper that I thought would be exempt from this type of shit. Best of luck to the good folks working there.

 

i don't think they'll go under soon. if not for blethen's debt load thanks to seattle, they'd be ok.

 

Just a nit-pick, Beej, but newspapers have been folding forever. Current ownership groups or current economic woes haven't changed that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_newspapers_of_the_United_States

Cincinnati Post, 2007
Birmingham Post-Herald, 2005
<snip>
Houston Post, 1995
Anchorage Times, 1992
Arkansas Gazette, 1991
L.A. Herald-Examiner, 1989
Miami News, 1988
<snip>
Washington Star, 1981
Chicago Daily News, 1978
<snip>
Boston Post, 1956
Brooklyn Eagle, 1955

... all the way back to ...

Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, 1690

 

Well, true...but this is a little unusual in that it's not THAT often that a newspaper folds as the only one in town. Many on your list were the second paper.

 

The thing that struck me about the story? The fact that the parent company is negotiating a union contract.

I'm not saying they're not hemorraging money, but I'm also not saying they're not playing that to the hilt to get a better contract or drive out the union entirely.

 

Agreed, SF. Many of those were also the afternoon paper, as well.

Just nit-picking with BYH's point about newspapers folding -- because no one remembers a time when it "seemed impossible that an entire paper could fold." There wasn't one.

 

The Blethens are in the middle of negotiations in Seattle, too. I'm sure they're using leverage in both situations, but their financial situation is really, really dire.

 

That list is worthless... the first daily I worked for that closed isn't even on it...

 

The Argus-Champion in New Hamshire, which had been around some 180 years, folded a few weeks ago.

 

You shut up!

You are of course correct, but I was thinking along the lines of SF: The concept of the one paper in a one-paper town closing is still jarring. I didn't think of the two Posts so much folding as getting closed down b/c the JOA expired. Those were inevitable (no less crushing, but it was a slow bleed as opposed to the surprise! you're dead! possibility here).

 

Birmingham's JOA still had 10 years to run. Thanks for reminding me -- you dick.

 

as mr. slappy said, it was a surprise -- birmingham folks got about 18 hours notice that they were on the street.