The abrupt closing last week of the 47-year-old Boston Phoenix was a shock to the alternative weekly ecosystem. It also underscored the divide between struggling big city papers and more viable smaller-market ones.

All good things do come to ends, though, and like many of our long-time cultural staples -- book stores, record stores, and video stores, to name a few -- newspapers have been dying forever, and it's kind of amazing it took 47 years for the Phoenix to finally succumb.

The Boston Phoenix, one of the country's most venerable alternative weekly titles, announced on Thursday that it is shutting down. In a memo first ...

What happened to talk radio in Boston? I would point to three factors. And I would suggest that none of these are unique to our part of the country. Boston may be on the leading edge, but these same trends could sweep away talk elsewhere, too.

Yes, way too many journalists are attending the conventions, and many if not most of the folks carrying press credentials this week should have stayed home. But I never found any shortage of news at national conventions I covered.

What makes a trend again? Today the Boston Phoenix is getting the media love, with not one, not two, but three stories getting link love in medialand....