WITH ALL DUE RESPECT to our good friend Alan Chartock, it is not true that The Columbia Paper “bit the dust.” Not yet, anyway.
Alan, the founder and CEO of WAMC Northeast Public Radio, was making a point last week on WAMC’s The Media Project show about the number of newspapers that have shut down. I tuned in just as he called The Columbia Paper a “great newspaper.” But I had no time to savor that praise before he pronounced this paper dead and lamented our passing.
If the Paper is Dead then Long Live the Paper. Put another way, there’s life left in us as a source of news about Columbia County. But Dr. Chartock is technically correct. I did “suspended publication” of the print edition after the March 26 issue. It was too risky for the delivery drivers. It was financially risky too. We lost almost all our revenue, which came from advertising and from subscriptions to the printed paper. Read more…