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''The Phoenix'' (stylized as ''The Phœnix'') was the name of several
alternative weekly An alternative newspaper is a type of newspaper that eschews comprehensive coverage of general news in favor of stylized reporting, opinionated reviews and columns, investigations into edgy topics and magazine-style feature stories highlighting ...
periodical A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also exampl ...
s published in the
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by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...
,
Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...
, including the ''Portland Phoenix'' and the now-defunct ''Boston Phoenix'', ''Providence Phoenix'' and ''Worcester Phoenix''. These publications emphasized local arts and entertainment coverage as well as lifestyle and political coverage. The ''Portland Phoenix'', although it is still publishing, is now owned by another company, New Portland Publishing. The papers, like most alternative weeklies, are somewhat similar in format and editorial content to the ''
Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...
''.


History


Origin

''The Phoenix'' was founded in 1965 by Joe Hanlon, a former editor at MIT's student newspaper, '' The Tech''. Since many Boston-area college newspapers were printed at the same printing firm, Hanlon's idea was to do a four-page single-sheet insert with arts coverage and ads. He began with the
Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...
's newspaper, ''The Harbus News''. A student there, James T. Lewis, became Hanlon's advertising manager. ''Boston After Dark'' began March 2, 1966. Theater enthusiast Larry Stark began contributing theater reviews with the second issue. When the insert idea did not pan out, the trio continued ''Boston After Dark'' as a weekly free paper. A year after the launch, Hanlon sold off his half to Lewis. For three years, ''Boston After Dark'' kept the four-page format, with Lewis as publisher, Jane Steidemann as editor, Stephen M. Mindich as ad salesman and Stark as full-time theater critic and copy editor, plus film reviews by Deac Rossell, who later went on to become head of programming at
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
's National Film Theatre. Arnie Reisman was appointed executive editor beginning in November 1968 and ending in November 1971. During Reisman's term of office, what began as Boston After Dark, a 16-page entertainment weekly was turned into a 156-page news weekly on the order of the ''Village Voice''.


Expansion

As the paper expanded, Mindich acquired a half interest. Stark quit in 1972 and began reviewing for the rival ''Cambridge Phoenix'', which had begun October 9, 1969, started by Jeffrey Tarter. The first managing editor of the ''Cambridge Phoenix'' was April Smith, who later became a novelist (''Good Morning, Killer'') and TV writer-producer ('' Cagney & Lacey'', '' Lou Grant'', '' Nightmares & Dreamscapes''). Following a two-week writers' strike in August 1972, the ''Cambridge Phoenix'' was sold to ''Boston After Dark''. Mindich's merger then became known as ''The Boston Phoenix'', with ''Boston After Dark'' used as the name for the paper's arts and entertainment section, as well as the nameplate for a free edition of the ''Phoenix'' distributed on college campuses in Boston. In the conflicts between writers and management, ousted writers immediately started another weekly, '' The Real Paper'' (which began August 2, 1972, and continued until 1981), while management continued the ''Boston Phoenix''. In 1988, the company that owned the ''Phoenix'', Phoenix Media/Communications Group, bought a similar publication in neighboring
Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
, called ''The NewPaper'', which had been founded in 1978 by ''
Providence Journal ''The Providence Journal'', colloquially known as the ''ProJo'', is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island, and is the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. The newspaper was first published in 1829. The newspape ...
'' columnist Ty Davis. It continued under the ''NewPaper'' name until 1993, when it became the ''Providence Phoenix''. In 1999, PM/CG branched out into
Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
,
Maine Maine () is a U.S. state, state in the New England and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and territories of Canad ...
by creating the ''Portland Phoenix''. That same year the nameplate changed from ''Phoenix B.A.D.'' to ''The Boston Phoenix''. From 1992 through 2000, there was also a '' Worcester Phoenix'', but it folded due to Worcester's dwindling arts market. In 2005, the ''Phoenix'' underwent a major redesign, switching from a broadsheet/ Berliner format to a
tabloid Tabloid may refer to: * Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism * Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size ** Chinese tabloid * Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size * Sopwith Tabloid, a biplane aircraft * ''Ta ...
format and introduced a new logo in order to increase its appeal to younger readers. Towards the end of its existence, The ''Phoenix'' had a weekly circulation of 253,000, and its website featured 90% of the paper's content, as well as extra content not included in the paper.


Mergers, closures and ownership change

On August 1, 2012, it was announced that ''Stuff Magazine'' and the ''Boston Phoenix'' newspaper would merge and the result would be a weekly magazine to be called ''The Phoenix'', to debut in the fall of 2012. The first issue of the new, glossy-paper ''Phoenix'' had a cover date of September 21, 2012. On March 14, 2013, the publisher announced that the ''Boston Phoenix'' would fold effective as of the March 15, 2013, print edition, though the Portland and Providence papers would be unaffected. In October 2014, ''The Phoenix'' announced that their Providence paper would also cease publication, with last issue being the October 17 issue. The ''Boston Phoenix'' published its last issue on March 14, 2013. A statement from publisher Mindich in that issue blamed the 2007 financial crisis and changes in the media business, particularly the downturn in print advertising revenue, as the reasons for the closing. In November 2014, Mindich sold the ''Portland Phoenix'' to the Portland News Club LLC, publishers of ''
The Portland Daily Sun ''The Portland Daily Sun'' was a free newspaper that was distributed to retail and business locations in Portland, Maine between 2009 and 2014. The paper was founded in 2009 by Mark Guerringue and Adam Hirshan of Country News Club, in partnership ...
''. Although the ''Daily Sun'' would cease publication one month later, the ''Portland Phoenix'' continues to be published weekly by new owners. In January 2019, the owner of the since-renamed Country News Club, Mark Guerringe, announced that the ''Portland Phoenix'' would move from once weekly to bi-weekly. In February, the paper ceased publication altogether, with an announcement that the paper had folded coming in April. In an interview with the ''
Portland Press Herald The ''Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram'' is a morning daily newspaper with a website that serves southern Maine and is focused on the greater metropolitan area around Portland, Maine, in the United States. Founded in 1862, its roots e ...
'', Guerringue said he may try to relaunch the ''Portland Phoenix'' on a membership basis or as a non-profit, funded by ads for Maine's legal marijuana industry. In August 2019, New Portland Publishing purchased the Portland Phoenix relaunching it as a weekly publication on November 13, 2019. Partners of New Portland Publishing Karen Wood (former long-time Publisher of ''The Forecaster'') assumed the role of Publisher, and Marian McCue (former owner of ''The Forecaster'' and member of the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame) became the editor.


Archiving

After the closing of the ''Boston Phoenix'' and the ''Providence Phoenix'', Mindich reassured the public that the websites would be maintained, and the online and print archives would be preserved. Sometime in 2014, the websites ceased to function; when they did start to come back in 2015, the sites responded slowly and intermittently. As of 2018, they are dark. In November 2015, ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' announced that Mindich, with the help of former ''Phoenix'' columnist and current Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy, had donated the ''Phoenix'' archives to Northeastern University’s Snell Library Archives and Special Collections. The gift also included other publications associated with the ''Phoenix'', including ''Boston After Dark,'' the Portland, Providence and Worcester ''Phoenix'' editions; '' El Planeta'', ''Stuff'' and ''Stuff at Night'' magazines, and early issues of The Real Paper. Hard copies of the publications are currently available to the public at Snell Library. Northeastern's goal was to digitize the collection and make it available online, but the cost was found to be prohibitive. In 2021, it learned The Internet Archive already had ownership of the complete microfilm collection of the ''Phoenix'' from 1973–2013. Northeastern then allowed Internet Archive to make the collection available for download by the public without limits. Records from WFNX were donated to Northeastern University's Snell Library Archives and Special Collections. In 2020, the online citizen science website Zooniverse started archiving the 1974 card file index, with the help of site users. After the finishing of the 1974 archives, Zooniverse moved to the 1980 index.


Radio

Over the years, PMCG acquired radio stations in Boston, Portland and Providence, notably the Boston
alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...
radio station WFNX. The company owned stations serving Metro Boston, New Hampshire, and Maine. The radio stations covered the same
music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...
, arts and political scene as the paper and sold to many of the same advertisers. The Maine station, WPHX, was sold to the owner of WXEX in 2011, while on May 16, 2012, the over-the-air signal and broadcast tower for the Boston station WFNX was sold to
Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...
and New Hampshire station WFEX has been sold to Blount Communications, the latter two transactions subject to FCC approval. Following FCC approval of the sale, WFNX stopped broadcasting on Tuesday, July 24, 2012; the webcast ended in May 2013. Former WFNX DJs and personalities Julie Kramer, Adam 12, Henry Santoro, and Paul Driscoll joined Boston.com and formed Radio BDC, another internet radio station. Records from WFNX were also donated to Northeastern University’s Snell Library Archives and Special Collections.


Awards

''The Phoenix'' received many awards for excellence in
journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...
, including honors from the New England Press Association, the Penny-Missouri Newspaper Awards, the
American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...
Gavel Awards, Michael J. Metcalfe Diversity in Media Awards and the
ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...
-Deems Taylor Awards. In 1994, ''Phoenix'' classical music writer Lloyd Schwartz was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.


See also

*
List of underground newspapers of the 1960s counterculture This is a partial list of the local underground newspapers launched during the Sixties era of the hippie/psychedelic/youth/counterculture/New Left/antiwar movements, approximately 1965–1972. This list includes periodically appearing papers of ge ...


References

Notes Sources *Levy, Jo
"''The Boston Phoenix'': Boston's Alternative Paper Not for the Birds"

''Ploughshares'' issuesNortheastern University School of Journalism


External links


Online archive
of ''The Boston Phoenix''
''The Portland Phoenix''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phoenix, The Publications established in 1966 1966 establishments in Massachusetts Publications disestablished in 2013 Newspapers published in Boston Alternative weekly newspapers published in the United States Defunct newspapers published in Massachusetts 2013 disestablishments in Massachusetts