-By Warner Todd Huston
After 143 years in print, the Manassas News & Messenger of Manassas, Virginia has turned off its printing presses for good.
The Manassas News is another in a long chain of failed local newspapers that have ceased publication over the last decade unable to compete with social media, electronic media, and cable TV delivering news as it happens. The paper stopped publication in November.
The paper was purchased by Warren Buffet’s World Media Enterprises last June, but ultimately the new owner decided that the Manassas News just wasn’t worth continuing.
Along with the cessation of the print edition, the paper also stopped updating its website. All employees lost their jobs.
World Media Enterprises has not announced the closing of any of its other papers but media watchers expect more to come in 2013.
Manassas, Virginia is best known as the site of two major Civil War battles.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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