I peeped the news at work Wednesday. After 41 years, City Pages, the Twin Cities' longest-running alternative weekly, shut down. I was planning on going out after work that day, and I was lucky I was downtown so I could come across copies of the alt-weekly. I picked up two at the bar where we usually watch our games, for posterity.
And I can add that to the piles, and heaps, and mounds of old City Pages copies I have and have yet to read in my storage unit. That publication, probably more than any other, is what I have, and have to go through. And ironically, now that the CP has closed down, I now feel as though I need to keep every single one of those copies.
There are now no good sources of free journalism in the area. The neighborhood shopper, I'm afraid, isn't adequate. I was able to grab a coffee, sit down, and for an hour (at least) go through CP and read the big, exciting, frequently- profane story they publish for that week. Some of them were political, some slice-of-life, some weird, and many I don't read, but every single one a piece of the local journalism puzzle that felt as though the major newspapers and television stations did not and/or are not able to cover. Oh yes, I liked the culture listings every week. And oh yeah, I will definitely miss their annual Best Of issue. I will miss all of it. And this death (the pandemic shut down entertainment venues, which appear to be a huge chunk of the advertising revenue in the weekly) blows a mighty hole in local journalism.
I'm sad. But (and permit me to be macabre) at least I won't add more copies of City Pages to my unit.
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