Today is a dismal day for the Baltimore media landscape, whether you liked reading Baltimore City Paper or not.

I walked to five different yellow boxes this morning for a copy of the last-ever issue of the City Paper. All of the issues were gone at the first two stands; two others had been carted off for good from my neighborhood. The papers are usually picked off quickly on Wednesday mornings as soon as they’re delivered. I’ve never had to walk more than a few blocks to find one.

J.M. Giordano’s photo on the cover of today’s paper, seen above, shows one of those iconic yellow boxes crushed and beaten in, lying toppled on the sidewalk below a leaning, broken street lamp. To a journalist who’s admired the paper’s work (and had the opportunity to write for it), it reeks of defeat, both that of the paper, and of the city.

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