Origin The Phoenix was founded in 1965 by Joe Hanlon, a former editor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's student newspaper,
The Tech. Since many
Boston-area college newspapers were printed at the same printing firm, Hanlon's idea was to do a four-page single-sheet insert with arts coverage and ads. He began with the
Harvard Business School's newspaper,
The Harbus News. A student there, James T. Lewis, became Hanlon's advertising manager.
Boston After Dark began March 2, 1966. Theater enthusiast
Larry Stark began contributing theater reviews with the second issue. When the insert idea did not pan out, the trio continued
Boston After Dark as a weekly free paper. A year after the launch, Hanlon sold off his half to Lewis. For three years,
Boston After Dark kept the four-page format, with Lewis as publisher, Jane Steidemann as editor, Stephen M. Mindich as ad salesman and Stark as full-time theater critic and copy editor, plus film reviews by Deac Rossell, who later went on to become head of programming at
London's
National Film Theatre. Arnie Reisman was appointed executive editor beginning in November 1968 and ending in November 1971. During Reisman's term of office, what began as
Boston After Dark, a 16-page entertainment weekly was turned into a 156-page news weekly on the order of
The Village Voice.
Expansion As the paper expanded, Mindich acquired a half interest. Stark quit in 1972 and began reviewing for the rival
Cambridge Phoenix, which had begun October 9, 1969, started by Jeffrey Tarter. The first managing editor of the
Cambridge Phoenix was
April Smith, who later became a novelist (
Good Morning, Killer) and TV writer-producer (
Cagney & Lacey,
Lou Grant,
Nightmares & Dreamscapes). Following a two-week writers' strike in August 1972, the
Cambridge Phoenix was sold to
Boston After Dark. Mindich's merger then became known as
The Boston Phoenix, with
Boston After Dark used as the name for the paper's arts and entertainment section, as well as the nameplate for a free edition of the
Phoenix distributed on college campuses in Boston. In the conflicts between writers and management, ousted writers immediately started another weekly,
The Real Paper (which began August 2, 1972, and continued until 1981), while management continued the
Boston Phoenix. In 1988, the company that owned the
Phoenix,
Phoenix Media/Communications Group, bought a similar publication in neighboring
Providence, Rhode Island, called
The NewPaper, which had been founded in 1978 by
Providence Journal columnist Ty Davis. It continued under the
NewPaper name until 1993, when it became the
Providence Phoenix. Towards the end of its existence, The
Phoenix had a weekly circulation of 253,000, and its website featured 90% of the paper's content, as well as extra content not included in the paper.
Mergers, closures and ownership change On August 1, 2012, it was announced that
Stuff Magazine and the
Boston Phoenix newspaper would merge and the result would be a weekly magazine to be called
The Phoenix, to debut in the fall of 2012. The first issue of the new, glossy-paper
Phoenix had a cover date of September 21, 2012. On March 14, 2013, the publisher announced that the
Boston Phoenix would fold effective as of the March 15, 2013, print edition, though the Portland and Providence papers would be unaffected. In October 2014,
The Phoenix announced that their Providence paper would also cease publication, with last issue being the October 17 issue. The
Boston Phoenix published its last issue on March 14, 2013. A statement from publisher Mindich in that issue blamed the
2008 financial crisis and changes in the media business, particularly the downturn in print advertising revenue, as the reasons for the closing. In November 2014, Mindich sold the
Portland Phoenix to the
Portland News Club LLC, publishers of
The Portland Daily Sun. Although the
Daily Sun would cease publication one month later, the
Portland Phoenix continued to be published weekly by the new owners. In January 2019, the owner of the since-renamed Country News Club, Mark Guerringe, announced that the
Portland Phoenix would move from once weekly to bi-weekly. In February, the paper ceased publication altogether, with an announcement that the paper had folded coming in April. In an interview with the
Portland Press Herald, Guerringue said he may try to relaunch the
Portland Phoenix on a membership basis or as a non-profit, funded by ads for
Maine's legal marijuana industry. In August 2019, New Portland Publishing purchased the Portland Phoenix relaunching it as a weekly publication on November 13, 2019. Partners of New Portland Publishing Karen Wood (former long-time Publisher of
The Forecaster) assumed the role of Publisher, and Marian McCue (former owner of
The Forecaster and member of the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame) became the editor. On July 23, 2023, the
Portland Phoenix published its final issue, citing a decline in advertising revenue related to the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Archiving After the closing of the
Boston Phoenix and the
Providence Phoenix, Mindich reassured the public that the websites would be maintained, and the online and print archives would be preserved. In November 2015,
The Boston Globe announced that Mindich, with the help of former
Phoenix columnist and current
Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy, had donated the
Phoenix archives to Northeastern University's Snell Library Archives and Special Collections. The gift also included other publications associated with the
Phoenix, including
Boston After Dark, the Portland, Providence and Worcester
Phoenix editions;
El Planeta,
Stuff and
Stuff at Night magazines, and early issues of
The Real Paper. Hard copies of the publications are currently available to the public at Snell Library. Northeastern's goal was to digitize the collection and make it available online, but the cost was found to be prohibitive. Records from the Boston
WFNX radio station were donated to Northeastern University's Snell Library Archives and Special Collections. After the finishing of the 1974 archives, Zooniverse moved to the 1980 index. ==Radio==