A Eulogy to Alt-Weeklies as SF Weekly Stops Publishing

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KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last week, SF Weekly, the free alternative newspaper, announced that it would cease publication for the foreseeable future. The loss of the paper, which won numerous accolades, including a George K. Polk Award for investigative reporting on the U.S. Navy's handling of nuclear waste at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, has been called incalculable. Its closure echoes the 2014 demise of the Weeklys bitter rival, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and it leaves the city with no alt-weeklies. Yet, there was a time when alt-weeklies, their issues fat with pages of copy and advertising, were a vibrant part of the Bay Area's zeitgeist. We'll talk about the golden age of alt-weeklies and whether newer, online models of local journalism can fill that void. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Key QBD Podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport. At SFO, you can shop,
0:06.7	dine, and unwind before your flight. Go ahead, treat yourself. Learn more about SFO restaurants and
0:12.7	shops at flysfo.com. Support for forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
0:23.4	From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:29.6	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an
0:35.3	unspeakable crime, it propels them into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and devotion.
0:43.4	The riveting and gloriously hopeful parade plays the Orpheum Theater for three weeks only, May 20th through June 8th.
0:51.7	Tickets on sale now at Broadwaysf.com.
0:56.6	From KQED.
0:58.0	I'm Alexis Madrigal. Welcome to Forum. The SF Weekly announced it was calling it quits this week.
1:15.2	The publication had been around for about 40 years in some form. Along with its rival, SF Bay Guardian and Cross Bay fellow travelers like the East Bay Express and Metro Silicon Valley, the Bay Area had one of the most formidable collections of
1:28.1	Alt Weeklys and Alt Weekly writers in the country. But in the internet era, they've struggled,
1:33.4	even as they're deeply embedded in the city, snarky, chatty DNA has been cross-bred into digital
1:39.3	media. We'll talk with Alt Weekly writers past and present and with you about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the alt press.
1:46.6	That's all next on Forum after this news.
1:58.6	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
2:19.2	You know, when I was growing up, my favorite journalistic outfits were not the big Metro Dailyes, which struck me as conservative and deeply uncool. No, for me, it was the surly attitude and speak truth to powerness of the free alt-weeklies that caught my attention. I was a religious reader of Portland's Willamette Week as a teenager and then founded my own short-lived paper for youth, reckless abandon.
2:23.6	Later, I gorged on the Boston Phoenix and the Bay Area's Guardian,
2:27.6	SF Weekly, and East Bay Express.
2:30.6	But over the last two decades,
2:32.2	these formidable institutions that nurtured writers like Rebecca
2:35.7	Solnit, Daniel Smith, Glenn David Gold, and investigative journalist A.C. Thompson have been in dire
	...

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