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News :: Media |
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Alternative Weekly The Paper To Close |
Current rating: 0 |
by Paul Riismandel
Email: paul (nospam) mediageek.org (unverified!)
Address: P.O. Box 2102, Champaign, IL 61825 |
09 Apr 2004
Modified: 10 Apr 2004 |
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As reported on this evening's edition of WEFT's mediageek radio program, the alternative weekly paper, The Paper, will cease publication in two weeks, citing poor ad revenue as a cause. |
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According to Jamie Hutchinson, a writer for The Paper, news editor Edward Burch sent an e-mail to the publication's staff informing them that the April 22 edition would be the last. He cited poor ad revenue and difficultly getting advertisers to support serious content as reasons for the shut down.
Hutchinson said that The Paper will continue in some fashion, most likely as ad sheet. He also said that Burch and arts editor Jenny Southlynn are considering starting a non-profit paper to fill the void.
In many ways The Paper formed out of the ashes of The C-U Cityview, which was Champaign-Urbana's only alternative weekly from 1995, when it was known as the Optimist, until it was closed permanently in January, 2003. The Cityview went through two ownership changes during its lifespan, first acquired from local ownership by Indiana-based Yesse Communication, when it was known as the Octopus, then bought by Michigan-based radio conglomerate Saga Communications, owner of local stations WIXY-FM, WLRW-FM and WKIO-FM. It was Saga that finally closed the doors on the Cityview.
For more on local media ownership in Champaign-Urbana, see the following U-C IMC articles:
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See also:
http://www.mediageek.org
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This work is in the public domain. |
Comments
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Wow, Send My Regrets |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Apr 2004
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This is unfortunate. The community should not be complacent about what it takes to keep independent media alive, even in what many see as the small-town market we seem to live in.
I can remember writing a letter to the editor about the contra war in Nicaragua in 1982 after I visited there. The News-Gazette refused to print it, saying I was no expert on the situation. The Octopus's predecessor gladly printed my letter. Later, everything I wrote in the letter about the contras and CIA involvement in Nicaragua being a Made-in-the USA operation proved to be 100% true.
If you want the truth in your media in C-U, don't forget to support your independent media.
This community cannot afford to be without independent media. Right now the N-G is coming down hard on the Humane Society. I don't know the whole truth there, as this is not a story I've followed closely. All I can say, is "Where was the News-Gazette all these years when poor people who couldn't pay their hospital bills were getting thrown in jail?"
Oh, that's right, animals do not buy full-page ads like hospitals do....which no doubt accounts for the N-G's hard-ass approach to the Humane Society and their soft-ball approach to their biggest advertisers, err... Carle and Provena Hospitals. |
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total bummer |
by gehrig
zemblan (nospam) earthlink.net (verified) |
Current rating: 2
10 Apr 2004
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That's a really deep bummer, especially if they were priced out of competition by a loss-leader with a much inferior product like Buzz Weakly.
Curiously, Springfield IL has had an alternative weekly called The Illinois Times for more than thirty years, and it clocks in at forty or more pages a shot. For a while in the 1980s they tried to expand the franchise to include a CU edition, but pulled out after a few years, because the DI acts as a spoiler -- sucking down the ad revenue that would otherwise go to an alternative paper.
It's scary to think that the role of "alternative paper" in CU is being held by the DI (the Damned Inadequate) and their Buzz Weakly. It's a terrible pity that -- with the exception of the Public (((i))) -- it's going to be impossible to find in print the words of any leftists over twenty-two.
@%< |
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Re: Alternative Weekly The Paper To Close |
by Theo Tsoukalas
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
10 Apr 2004
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It is sad, it is so very sad to see The Paper close. My heartfelt thoughts of support and wishes of good luck go out to the folks that worked for The Paper. As a former resident of 12 some years of Urbana-Chamapaign I have appreciated the existence of alternative media voices in that community.
And so amidst my sadness for the loss of The paper, I am pleased that at least the UC-IMC and the Public I are still around and they do the good work they do to inform the community in ways that the commercial media will never do. And I am thankful to the staff and volunteers at UC-IMC and the Public I that make all that possible--I cannot do that type of work, and so it is reassuring to know that there is an infrastructure of independent media out there in the Urbana-Champaign community whose work brings hope to this great and most humane struggle for peace, for justice, and for human dignity and respect.
Theo Tsoukalas
San Francisco |
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Re: Alternative Weekly The Paper To Close |
by Ed
frozenthought (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 8
12 Apr 2004
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Mark Hyman is the Vice President for Corporate Relations for Sinclair, the nation’s largest operator of television stations. Sinclair’s television operations are diverse in programming with stations affiliated with the top six networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, UPN and WB). Sinclair currently owns, operates, programs, or provides sales services to 63 television stations, reaching one in four U.S. television households. Sinclair’s corporate headquarters are based in Hunt Valley, Maryland.
In his current position, he is the head of Corporate Relations which includes developing strategic policy, managing Federal, state and local legislative and regulatory relations, public and media affairs, and community outreach and charitable activities. Sinclair’s total media operations are located in 24 states.
He served briefly in the Army before attending college on an Army ROTC scholarship. He was later accepted to the U. S. Naval Academy from which he graduated in 1981. He served as a naval officer on ships assigned to the East and West coasts and he served in the U.S. Navy’s European headquarters in London. He has conducted worldwide travel with extensive time spent in the Middle East. He left active duty in 1989 and became employed as a civilian in the Office of Naval Intelligence, which included assignments with the U.S. On-Site Inspection Agency as a disarmament treaty weapons inspector in former Warsaw Pact countries. A Captain in the Naval Reserve, he has served in leadership positions in CIA’s National Warning Staff, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office and he is currently a Commanding Officer in the Naval Reserve’s Space and Network Warfare Program.
In 1995, he attended Johns Hopkins University on an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship and worked in the U.S. House of Representatives. He joined Sinclair in 1997 as the Director of Government Relations and was promoted to his current position in 1999. He is an officer and director of the Maryland-D.C.-Delaware Broadcasters Association. He is a Vice President of the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, a not-for-profit national research and public policy organization. He has appeared on CNN, Fox News and NPR, on local radio stations, has been interviewed in national publications including the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today, and he hosts "The Point with Mark Hyman", televised commentaries appearing on Sinclair TV stations with a daily household audience more than four million viewers. He has been a speaker and panel member at numerous conventions and he has testified before Congress.
The military organizations in which he has served have been awarded four CIA National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Commendations during his service, and he has been awarded the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award, and several Navy and Joint military awards. He was selected as an International Who’s Who of Professionals for 1998 and 2001 and Who’s Who for 2001 and 2002. He is active in several area community and charity groups. Mark is married and has 4 children.
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I post this fellows resume to substantiate & verify some of Paul Riismandel's claims about the local TV news bureau(WICD15). I assume most casual viewers of the news are completely unaware they are being lectured to by a CIA operative who has won numerous awards. I hope that "The Point" is not interpreted as representative of the values of conservatism even though some of his opinions coincide with mine. Sinclair Broadcasting has made a fundamental business decision which I must admit I find profoundly disturbing. I'm sorry to see yet another local alternative newspaper cease publication. It is all the more reason to support independent media sources such as WEFT 90.1 FM. ---ED |
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Da' Hub |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Apr 2004
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I finally saw the future and this is how it is...
It seems we have plenty of places to get hard news these days, ya' know, the News-Gazette, CBS, Rush Limbaugh...
But ya' don't have hardly any media to tell you how to spend your disposable income...
Na', I hardly ever know where to go to burn all this money that keeps accumulating in my low-rent apartment that I pay for with all this cash I earn from my minimum wage job.
I'm just rolling in cash, ya' see, have no idea where to waste it all, nor where to find a bar in Champaign, and The Hub is here to help. In fact, because all those other media do such a good job with the hard news and such a lousy job telling me where to spend all my extra cash on entertainment, I'm glad that I now have one less local outlet for real news and opinion...
Ya', right. And George W. Bush is a leading member of Mensa.
Looks like mediageek did a pretty accurate job of breaking this story.
Goodbye, The Paper. We'll miss you and your financially inconvenient discussion of local life and politics. |
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