Phoenix bids adieu at 36

STOP THE PRESSES: The cover of the final edition of the Providence Phoenix, which published Thursday, Oct. 16. / COURTESY PHOENIX MEDIA
STOP THE PRESSES: The cover of the final edition of the Providence Phoenix, which published Thursday, Oct. 16. / COURTESY PHOENIX MEDIA

If any city seemed suited to an alternative weekly newspaper it was Providence. College students and liberal sensibilities promised a receptive audience, while artists, musicians and a notorious political culture supplied the subject matter.
After 36 years, however, that was no longer enough to pay the bills at the Providence Phoenix, Rhode Island’s alternative print standard-bearer, which issued its final edition last week.
Given the persistent struggles of newspapers, and alternative weeklies in particular, the Phoenix’s closing was to some extent predictable.
Phoenix Media owner Stephen Mindich had closed the Boston Phoenix a year and a half ago and the Providence paper, already slimmed down from its 1990s heyday, was still losing money with little left to cut.
But that didn’t soften the blow for those who came to rely on it over the years or the state’s remaining free publications that now carry on in a treacherous advertising environment.
“It wasn’t a big surprise, but it’s a loss for our industry,” said Mike Ryan, owner of Motif Magazine, which was the closest direct competitor to the Phoenix. “It is an opportunity for Motif, but competition brings the best out in us. They had a lot of great writers.”
Without the Phoenix, a Providence media industry that had already been shrinking has narrowed further and lost a venue for different stories and different styles of storytelling.
John Pantalone, assistant professor of journalism and journalism department chair at the University of Rhode Island, said it’s not clear who will fill the void left by the Phoenix, as fellow print publications keep downsizing and no digital startup has proven itself yet.
“The big problem with Internet sites is they don’t hire people,” Pantalone said. “And I guess there is an irony in that most of the new startups on the Internet are free and that model started with free newspapers.”
Started in 1966, the Boston Phoenix helped pioneer the alternative weekly form, which became prevalent and profitable in cities across the country from the 1970s to the end of the 1990s. Piled high on racks in pizza parlors, delis, laundromats and coffee shops, the weeklies might have been best known for their coverage of the arts, but they also dedicated substantial space and writing talent to politics and current events.
The publication that would become the Providence Phoenix started out as The New Paper in 1978, before being purchased and renamed by Phoenix Media in 1988.
The migration of classified advertising and the often racy personals to the Internet hurt the alternative weeklies even more than daily papers, and their decline has been swift.
As the Phoenix was preparing its final issue last week, the San Francisco Bay Guardian in California announced it would be folding as well.
Phoenix Media Chief Operating Officer Everett Finkelstein said financial trouble that started with the loss of national advertisers, who made buys in groups of alternative weeklies, eventually spread to all categories, including the once lucrative adult section.
From editions as large as 216 pages in 1993, the Phoenix was down to 28 pages in its penultimate week. The staff had been whittled from 20 to roughly a dozen full timers, Finkelstein said.
Since the recession, the sluggishness of the Rhode Island economy hindered efforts to keep the Phoenix going and was one of the reasons the Providence paper is now gone while its sister publication in Portland, Maine, soldiers on, Finkelstein said. Although alternative papers were born out of big-city cosmopolitanism, they may now find a bastion in smaller cities with fewer media competitors.
“The economy is stronger and the competition is less up there,” Finkelstein said about Portland. “There are very successful ‘alt’ weeklies in ‘B-level’ markets. They are well-entrenched and go toe-to-toe with the daily papers, but unfortunately their economies are doing a bit better too.”
Finkelstein said he had been considering various options, including going all digital, to keep the Phoenix brand alive, but none seemed viable.
“I have been wrestling with this for months, looking for ways to make this work,” Finkelstein said. “Online is a very difficult business model to make work. There are lots of blogs out there, but it is hard to do with the quality we wanted to do.” With the Phoenix gone, remaining free print publications resembling an alternative weekly in Rhode Island are down to Motif and the Newport Mercury. The closest thing online may be the arts and entertainment website Providence Daily Dose.
At Motif, Ryan said he already has reached out to some of the Phoenix’s former advertisers, but at the moment doesn’t plan to dramatically change what his publication is doing.
Despite its business struggles, Ryan said print is not going away.
“There is no question there is a deep-seeded need for art, culture, entertainment [and] knowing what is going on,” Ryan said. “When people come to Rhode Island and pick up a Phoenix or Motif, that is one of the gateways to Rhode Island and Providence. That is not going to go away.”
Asked what the Phoenix, and alternative weekly format, provided that doesn’t exist elsewhere, Phoenix News Editor Phil Eil said it is the space and time to delve into topics and explore them from unconventional angles.
“There is just a length and word-count component, which translates into going in-depth and taking a close look at something that you don’t have elsewhere,” Eil said. “Another thing we took pride in is seeking voices that weren’t being heard in the local media. And that’s not mentioning arts coverage, which is now losing one of its steadiest chroniclers.”
Although the Internet provides nearly unlimited space to do the kind of work produced in the Phoenix, Eil said currently no locally based online publication has achieved the mix of politics, current events, arts and entertainment writing that propelled alternative weeklies.
Despite the limited options facing journalists locally, Eil said he does not intend to leave Rhode Island in search of better opportunities.
“The beat here at the Providence Phoenix is the best in the world: H.P. Lovecraft, Buddy Cianci, 38 Studios, the arts scene and AS220. It doesn’t get any better,” he said.

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