An alternative weekly newspaper has folded in Maine’s largest city.
The Portland Phoenix will cease publishing with its July 26 edition, according to publisher Karen Wood.
“We were just not able to find a path to success in a changing news environment and media market where people are streaming news,” said Marian McCue, co-owner with Wood of New Portland Publishing Inc.
McCue and Woods revived the Phoenix after the publication folded in 2019 amid struggles to finance its operation.
Wood attributed the weekly’s demise, in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic, which struck just months after the Phoenix was rebooted, frustrating its advertising strategy and hindering its growth.
“We started to make contacts with advertisers, but everybody pulled back after the pandemic, and the recovery has just been too slow,” Wood said Wednesday.
The Portland Phoenix was the last surviving publication of the storied Phoenix family of New England alternative newspapers, which included weeklies in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, in addition to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Phoenix, founded in 1966.
The Portland Phoenix, originally launched in 1999, was honored by the Maine Press Association for its writing and received first place awards for General Excellence in its category in 2021 and 2022.
