Cleveland Scene rubs salt in the wound

This pissy little comment by the Scene’s Pete Kotz seems to take far too much pleasure from the decision by two media companies to close two newspapers in Cleveland and Los Angeles, thereby giving each company a monopoly on alternative journalism (snort):

New Times LA cashed in because it was losing the fight. LA Weekly had an 18-year head start, and the only way to catch it involved fjording a river of red ink. The Free Times died for a different reason. It lost its dominant position long ago through mismanagement, labor problems, and rapidly declining quality. Yet it continued to behave as if it were king, clinging to its boast of being “Ohio’s Largest News, Arts & Entertainment Weekly,” though it hadn’t been true for years. Call it death by delusion.

I have never read either paper, except for their Web sites. I always found the Free Times to be newsier, while the Scene concentrated on fluff. Kotz writes that the Scene was more successful — by which he means financially successful. Forgive me, but I was under the impression “alternative” newspapers were those which judged success by their quality of their journalism, not the bottom line. We have the mainstream press for that.

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