The Boston dailies ran entirely true to form in their coverage of the Boston Phoenix facelift (and a little lipo, we assume).
Yesterday’s Globe had a front-page feature that looked at the rapid erosion of local macher Stephen Mindich’s media holdings.
A hybrid rises from the old Boston Phoenix
Alternative paper’s longtime publisher adjusts to changing times
As summer approached, staff meetings at The Boston Phoenix grew more frequent amid mounting concerns about layoffs, an announced move to new offices, and the future of the Phoenix itself.
One indication of the meetings’ importance was the presence of owner and publisher Stephen Mindich. He has guided the paper’s fortunes since the 1970s, making it the centerpiece of a youth-oriented media conglomerate, yet he had scaled back day-to-day management duties while his son Brad ran the company.
The outcome of those staff discussions has left many observers wondering if the Phoenix they have known and read for decades — a pioneering alternative weekly paper celebrated for its lively coverage of politics, media, and the arts — will be around much longer.
This Thursday, The Boston Phoenix will formally merge with its sister publication, Stuff, a glossy biweekly, into a publication called simply The Phoenix. As a newsprint entity, the old Boston Phoenix will cease to exist.
As has WFNX-FM, stripped for parts like a car left overnight on the Cross Bronx Expressway (signal to Clear Channel for $14 million, staff to boston.com to start up Radio BDC, call letters to the web for wfnx.com). Spanish-language paper El Planeta was also jettisoned. The Mindich media empire is down to a sandlot.
Crosstown at the Herald today, the Track Gals (and Megan!) have something much dishier:
Phoenix sex ads under Twitter attack
The Boston Phoenix, which will debut a new glossy-mag look this week, was under Twitter attack yesterday after someone hijacked the name of its new adult rag and began tweeting X-rated missives at advertisers, public officials and Phoenix staffers.
@BostonAtNite is not the Twitter handle of the Phoenix’s new adult publicationBoston At Nite, according to editor at large Peter Kadzis. But the “Parody” account was tweeting up Mayor Tom Menino, Attorney General Martha Coakley, clubs and bands that advertised on the Boston At Nite website and columnists for the alternative weekly.
“Find your underage sex slave today! Sex trafficking for all,” said @BostonAtNite, adding the word “Parody” so you’d know it wasn’t real.
Not surprisingly, the Phoenix folks are not amused. “[Editor at large Peter] Kadzis said the Phoenix has complained to Twitter about the account and is trying to get it taken down. ‘Any sick (bleep) can sign up for a Twitter handle,’ Kadzis said. ‘My prediction — and it’s probably true — is that there’s a connection to a rival publication.'”
As in the Weekly Dig, whose publisher Jeff Lawrence, the Track Gals (and Megan!) point out, just happens to be one of the whopping 19 tweeps who follow @BostonAtNite.
Fun for the whole family! Except for the X-rated part, of course.
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