MEDIA MASSAGE: DEATH OF A FAUX-ALT

Exit Weekly to cease publication immediately

Media Massage learned today that the North Jersey Media Group, owners of the Bergen Record among other publications, has shuttered the majority of its "Specialty Publications" division, which includes the youth-oriented weekly Exit. Our source says the closure is effective immediately, and all Exit staffers have been laid off, just in time for the holidays. No word on if North Jersey Media Group's other "Specialty Publications" -- N.J. Cops, The Parent Paper, and Country Kids -- will also close.

North Jersey Media Group was not available for comment.

Honestly, we at City Belt were never too impressed with Exit -- as people who work inside the alternative press, Exit often felt like it was a labor of business, rather than a labor of love -- which it ultimately was: a top-down approach to alternative journalism, rather than a bottom-up one. The paper was improving, though -- becoming more substantial. But it looks like, as in so many other cases, business won out.

We should make it clear that we're not gloating or anything like that here -- we never really saw Exit as a competitor (our styles are just far too different). If anything, we express our sympathies to those staffers who got canned. At this point, it's unclear whether any severance pay was extended to those now ex-employees.

We can't help but wonder if this is related at all to the rumor that North Jersey Media Group had been approached about buying the New York Press, as floated a few weeks back in the New York Observer. I don't really see how this would make any sense, nor do I see why anyone would want to buy the New York Press, which seems like a business-side walking disaster, especially a newspaper chain that is struggling with its own roster of papers, like the aforementioned Record.

So, farewell, Exit, and good luck.

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Comments

[tris mccall]

i thought it was terrible. but then i'm a jerk.

[Chaunce Hayden]

(The following is an email Exit editor Steve DeVries sent to a potential advertiser just days before the North Jersey Media Group pulled the plug)

Hi Jim,
Exit isn't packing up by a long shot -- we're owned by North Jersey Media Group, which owns The Record and Herald News and we have plenty of cushion. That's one difference between us and the independent pubs who came and went earlier -- they didn't have financial backing we do. Our company understands that a new pub can take up to three years to become financially viable and our owners believe in Exit enough to keep it going for as long as it takes. If Steppin' Out is waiting for us to fold, they'd better have a very, very long term plan.
Keep watching us, and I say without hesitation that if you didn't feel 2006 was the year to advertise with Exit, 2007 will be the year that we'll change your mind.

Keep in touch Jim, always a pleasure to speak with the readers.
Steve DeVries
Editor
Exit magazine