Rhino Times Extinct

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After a 21-year run, the Greensboro, North Carolina-based conservative alternative weekly newspaper Rhino Times published its last issue this week.

Publisher John Hammer said the paper simply ran out of money, according to accounts on the Greensboro News-Record, bizjournals.com and Romanesko.com Web sites. Shrinking ad revenues and a failed six-year expansion into Charlotte that ended in 2008 were blamed for the publication's heavy indebtedness.

Hammer, who laid off his entire paid staff this week, hopes to maintain the Rhino's Web site for now, though the prospects are not encouraging.  The paper was a staunch advocate of government transparency, but didn't attempt to cloak its partisanship, freely combining news and editorial content in its articles.

The Rhino Times launched in 1991 printed its final issue on April 25.