Year in Review: Media We Mourned

The Malden Evening News and the Medford Daily Mercury These two small Massachusetts daily newspapers became the first notable print media to fold in 2017 when they abruptly went out of business in January (their shared website went offline too). The sibling titles both launched in 1880—and back in the 1980s, Rupert Murdoch tried (and failed) to buy the evening paper. Norte "¡Adios!" That one-word banner headline was emblazoned across the front page of the April 2 issue of Norte, the daily newspaper of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. The closure came in the wake of the latest series of murders of journalists from other news organizations. "Today, dear reader, I am speaking to you to inform you that I have decided to close this daily because the guarantee for the safety for us to continue journalism does not exist," Norte owner Oscar Cantú Murguía wrote in the paper's farewell edition. "Everything in life has a beginning and an end, a price to pay. If this is what life is like, I am not ready for one more of my collaborators to pay for it and I am not either." Esquire Network In June, this joint venture between the NBC Universal Cable Entertainment Group and Hearst, which was born out of the repositioning of the old video-gaming channel G4 in 2013, bit the dust. The Buenos Aires Herald On July 28, this icon of Latin-American journalism released its last issue. The paper had fearlessly covered "the disappeared" (activists and other citizens abducted and killed by the state), leading to relentless threats against its editors and reporters during the military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983. (Buenosairesherald.com remains online for now but is inactive.) The Village Voice Print Edition In September, after publishing weekly since 1955, the storied alternative newspaper put out its last print edition; Bob Dylan was the final coverboy. (Villagevoice.com continues.) Nylon Print Edition Nylon Media announced in September that the October issue of indie women's fashion glossy Nylon would be its last print incarnation. (Nylon.com lives on.) Men's Fitness Print Edition With its November issue, American Media's health and fitness glossy bid farewell to its life as a print publication (AMI folded the brand's content into Men's Journal, which it acquired from Wenner Media earlier this year.) Baltimore City Paper The Nov. 1 issue of the scrappy Baltimore alternative weekly (where your Media Guy cut his teeth as a columnist early in his career) was its last. The brand, which the Baltimore Sun Media Group bought in 2014, was shut down entirely (the website remains online for now; its last post is also dated Nov. 1). Teen Vogue Print Edition In December, the youth-culture glossy put out one of its final print editions—Condé Nast announced in November that the brand is going digital-only in 2018—with the cover line "Nevertheless, we resist" and an image of guest editor Hillary Clinton. Spike This male-focused cable network is on its last legs. Earlier this year, Viacom announced that it will kill off the brand and rebrand the channel as the Paramount Network on Jan. 18, 2018.

Year in Review: Media We Mourned

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