The Beat is Dead; Long Live The Beat

A little more than two years ago, a fellow with a mean left hook and known for throwing heaps of money toward left-wing causes approached two local journalism hacks and asked if they wanted to start a newspaper. He would fund it. The two hacks, out of work, out of ideas and out of their minds, said, "OK." And The Beat was born.

And it lasted an amazingly long two years, considering it catered to the left, which generally speaking has no money to help support such an endeavor. And that relative poverty is why we catered to the left. As the wise man once said, "A newspaper's mission is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

We tried.

Anyway, this is our message of thanks to those who read us and supported us and worked for us. We just can't do it any more, kids.

So we leave the local news coverage and analyzing of evolving events to the two established papers-the News & Review and the Enterprise Record. Though we admit, we can't tell them apart any longer. Each has an editorial bent designed to chase and capture advertisements. Why not? That is the only way to survive in this game. The reader takes a back seat. The advertiser rides shotgun. And the rest of us are all a little poorer for it.

This website goes dark sometime Friday afternoon.

See you in the funny pages.

Sincerely,

The Chico Beat.