Bob CollinsRather quietly overnight, a piece of Twin Cities media died.
The local entertainment website A.V. Club, along with the print version of The Onion in the Twin Cities, have gone belly up. Jason Zabel made the announcement on the site late last night…
The loss of local coverage is an unfortunate but common occurrence these days. But the loss of The A.V. Club here in the Twin Cities makes me especially sad, and not just because I’m out of a job, but because I think this publication has a unique voice. In our time publishing in the Twin Cities, we have tried our best to develop a publication that we feel reflects the Twin Cities: smart, fun, and a little bit different.
The best part of writing for The A.V. Club is the freedom. During my time alone, we’ve wondered why there are so few openly gay athletes, written about a man who turned his house into a town, interviewed an all-male Britney Spears cover band, and run-through all of the crazy shit Bob Dylan has done, all while using as many curse words as we pleased.
Sarah Harper at the U of M Daily’s A&E blog sums it up…
Both The Onion and The A.V. Club will continue to exist online on a national-level but they won’t join City Pages and Vita.mn as part of your coffee shop holy trinity ever again.
I can’t be the only shmoe around here who uses The A.V. Club, Twin Cities for a home page – between whistle-blowing sessions with local back-patters and diligent coverage of hack research, there’s always a juicy read.
Which, of course, leads to the obvious question: Is there any sort of market in the Twin Cities for an independent source that’s always a juicy read?
