With the Nevada Appeal slimming down to tabloid size recently, another weekly tabloid that has been serving Carson City for a couple of years is about to go away. The Carson Times, a free production of the Reno Gazette Journal that is available on Fridays all over town, will be shutting down this week. This Friday’s issue will be the last one. When the paper launched three years ago it sent me off into yet another tirade about how newspapers were more focused on the paper than on the news, with particular focus on the fact that the Carson Times website was just the Carson City section of RGJ.com. And three years later it’s still the same way, like the parent paper never bothered to give the Times its own identity beyond the logo on the masthead. But still it’s a shame to lose the paper, just like it was a shame to lose the Douglas Times four months ago. And it’s more of a shame that they didn’t try to relaunch it as an online-only publication, which could be run at a fraction of the cost of the weekly tabloid. After all I’m sure the RGJ isn’t going to stop covering Carson City news all together, even though they’ve also laid off five people in their Carson bureau. But I guess with 30 layoffs total in recent weeks, they’re not in the position to try anything risky and are just trying to keep their heads above water.
