Quieting the Town Crier

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Greenfield (Mass.) Town Crier, a weekly newspaper founded in 1961 and distributed free each Friday, will turn off the lights with its May 11 issue, the Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer reports.

Although the Town Crier recently launched a Web site, established a Facebook presence and underwent a re-design, the end result was the same as watching one's middle-aged uncle throw on a bad toupee, don khakis and go to a bar for twenty-somethings.  Like the newspaper industry overall, the Town Crier was not immune to the effects of declining ad pages and readers' changing tastes.

The Reformer published the Town Crier. Both newspapers are owned by digital first Media's Media News Group, Inc. The Town Crier, a source of local and community news, had a circulation of roughly 12,000, according to the Mondotimes.com Web site.