In addition to getting a PPP loan, the paper started the Scene Press Club, where they solicited donations from readers in exchange for swag like branded water bottles and car magnets, something many alt-weeklies have done since last March. “I think there was probably a very real sense among the ownership group that it might be easier and the best decision, to just shut it all down,” Grzegorek said. The paper stopped printing from March to July and three people were laid off. When the pandemic hit, all event revenue was gone, as well ad revenue from restaurants, bars, and venues. Before the coronavirus, the Scene had five editorial staffers and was putting out a paper once a week, plus hosting events, like a beer festival in a park or a brunch. When the pandemic hit, it might have been easier to shut down the Cleveland Scene. “I’m hitting my head with a hammer saying, ‘Why didn’t I start this sooner?’”Ĭleveland Scene: “We threw up the bat signal and said, ‘Oh my god, we’re done unless you help us.’” Reader donations have been a “lifesaver,” said editor and publisher Mark Zusman. Many spent weeks covering Black Lives Matter protests, like INDY Week, Austin Chronicle, Pittsburgh City Paper, the Portland Mercury and Willamette Week, Portland, Oregon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning alt-weekly, which saw both its web traffic and its Friends of Willamette Week membership program grow exponentially in 2020 (and where this writer previously worked and still occasionally freelances). But after we moved on from the doom-and-gloom headlines, many papers continued to do backbreaking work, holding power structures accountable as they continued to cover the pandemic with shrunken newsrooms, supporting creative communities, and holding power structures accountable in the voicey, fearless way that only alt-weeklies can.ĭespite a loss of revenue, their reporting was more necessary than ever. The pandemic was supposed to be the “ total annihilation” of alt-weeklies. Others were casualties of the pandemic: City Pages, Minnesota’s beloved alt-weekly, particularly known for music writing, closed last fall. The Village Voice closed in 2018 LA Weekly was sold in 2017 and gutted the same year Baltimore City Paper closed. Many alternative weeklies have been gutted, or closed in the last five years. Are alt-weeklies ever going to catch a break? An already precarious media industry has only become more precarious for alternative weeklies, which are mainly funded by ads from restaurants, bars, and concert venues-businesses that depend on people gathering in large groups, and whose cultural coverage centers around telling readers to go out and do things.
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