'State of the News Media' Offers Mixed Forecast for Alt-Weeklies

march 17, 2006  09:02 am
Widespread and unrelenting competition both online and off have left "the large-market alternative weeklies ... bleeding from dozens of little cuts," according to the 2006 report issued earlier this week by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. The report also notes that while national advertising has declined, the industry has "regained upward momentum in circulation" and alt-weeklies in secondary markets continue to grow. The potential threat of a journalism venture from Craig Newmark and the possibility of more mergers fill the crystal-ball portion of the report, which concludes: "The biggest issue on the horizon for the alternative weeklies is the Voice/New Times merger. Despite talk in recent years that the world of the weeklies has been conglomeratized, there is still a lot of room for mergers among the owners that remain."