Today, October 8, 2015, is the final edition of the Philadelphia City Paper. The website, citypaper.net, will be going away too; assets are being purchased by the Philly Weekly, and will likely disappear like last week's print edition.
The timing is a bit of a surprise (were they waiting for the pope to leave?) but not the news. Weekly papers have been struggling for years. They served a brilliant purpose in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, but the arrival of the internet took away the advertising revenue, classifieds, event listings, local band promotions, and porn, leaving little left but horoscopes and arrogant-and-otherwise-unemployable editors. The City Paper was rare in that they actually had real news and competent reporters -- I'd link to some examples but the site's going away -- and it must be a bitter pill for the remaining staff that they've been purchased by an organization that largely abandoned reporting years ago.
Still, maybe one weekly will have enough wherewithal to stay afloat for a few more years. It gives us something to read while waiting for our phones to charge in the coffee house.