The Seattle Weekly will cease its print publication after forty-two years, becoming online-only after the last edition hits newsstands today. The closing comes sixteen months after the Weekly laid off most of the staff in an effort to become profitable again. Josh O’Connor, the president of the publication’s parent company, Sound Publishing, explained the decision in a letter to readers: “Under Sound Publishing, Seattle Weekly tried to continue an emphasis on features and lifestyle topics that would appeal to younger readers, but this, unfortunately, came right at a time when ‘younger’ readers were abandoning print.” Without the youth contingent, O’Connor writes, the paper lacked a “clear sense of purpose.” Sound Publishing is hoping an outside buyer with “passion and ambition” will step in.
Nancy Bass Wyden, the owner of The Strand Bookstore in New York City, is resisting an effort by the city to declare the store a landmark.
At Literary Hub, Geoff Dyer writes about Where Eagles Dare, the 1968 World War II action movie that is the subject of Dyer’s new book, Broadsword Calling Danny Boy.
At the Columbia Journalism Review, Lyz Lenz profiles Michael Sitrick, a public relations guru who handles the media for rich clients when things go wrong. Sitrick’s clients have included Lee Iacocca, the Los Angeles Catholic archdiocese, American Apparel, and Harvey Weinstein. Lenz writes of Sitrick, “Seeing journalism through the eyes of someone so good at manipulating it might offer us a window into understanding what’s gone so wrong. Or maybe it offers us nothing; maybe he was just spinning me, too.”