We were notified at 2 pm today that the issue of the Boston Phoenix on stands today is the last one we will ever publish.

The timing comes as a shock, but the news isn't a surprise. We're less than a year into an experiment launched last fall to turn a 46 year old alternative weekly newspaper into a weekly magazine. By every measure not related to advertising sales, it has been a success.

Let's be honest: it wasn't really a fair fight.

Anyone who follows #mapoli knows that the dean of the Massachusetts political twitterati is the Phoenix's own David S. Bernstein -- the man responsible for such runaway hits as #mapoliwithanimals (now a popular Tumblr, as well), #ScottoSawIt (after Scott Brown was fooled by fake Bin Laden death photos), #HowCambridgeShouldPickAMayor, #FakeMATown, #ReplaceItWithMitt, and #FakeMAPoliExitPolls.

It wasn't too long into fall semester before white kids from cozy towns resumed brutally slaughtering innocent school children. As the routine goes, we collectively cringe, while celebrities tweet sweet compassionate gestures, and reporters hustle clean around the clock to prove that it was all just a mistake – that none of this was supposed to have transpired.

Presenting: The Phoenix's new logo. (Just kidding. Maybe.)

Been working on this new thing for a minute, pretty stoked. (Translation for mainstream media reporters: this has been in the works for a while, the editor is excited.)

(Oh also while we've got your attention you should check out the metal issue on stands tomorrow -- cover illustration by Converge's Jake Bannon -- album-length soundtrack already out now featuring the premiere of a new Shadows Fall track and Doomriders' unreleased Devo cover)

Earlier today, the Phoenix Media/Communications Group announced the sale of its radio station, WFNX, to Clear Channel Communications -- the largest radio station owner in the country.

All day, long-time listeners have expressed their thoughts, feelings, concerns, and memories of WFNX over the years.

Below, read what some WFNX fans have been saying on Twitter and Facebook.

Within the span of a few minutes over the weekend, the New Yorker and Politico published first-person remembrances of legendary newsman (and Brookline High grad) MIKE WALLACE, both of which had essentially the same headline: I Was Scooped By Mike Wallace.

The anecdotes related are more than 20 years apart, but they feel like they could've happened on consecutive weekends.

Dunno what your Saturday night Grammy pre-game was like, but ours involved a tough-ass veggie-and-chicken plate, the world's longest power-point presentation, and the company of every newspaper in New England not named the Boston Globe or the Boston Herald. Believe it or not, this is what passes in the fishwrap industry as a hell of a time, and don't be fooled by our cynical description of the festivities: we wouldn't miss this shit for the world.

^{Source: Flickr via Wikipedia}

The Onward State tweet that erroneously reported Joe Paterno's death Saturday night and led to an avalanche of false reports in other outlets was based on the work of two student reporters: One was snookered by a false email, and one overstated his knowledge of the events, according to the site's co-founder.

Ruh roh. An editor at Mediate grabbed this screenshot of the Herald's website yesterday -- accidentally using the second-coming-of-bin-Laden terror banner when they presumably meant to use the fellating-the-advertisers banner.

Meanwhile, in other Herald-fail news, former Herald editor Kevin Convey was canned yesterday from the NY Daily News -- to make way for the former editor of Rupert Murdoch's disgraced News of the World

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Boston Globe's Pulitzer-winning series of stories that explored the extent of the Catholic Church's complicity in a horrifying, decades-long cover-up of child rape by the clergy. The Phoenix broke that story nearly a year earlier, in a series that you can read online here

This weekend, after sleeping off the turkey, we here at the Boston Phoenix will be putting in a few extra shifts to begin the laborious process of clearing out the newsroom, which has been gathering dust, backissues, scribbled in-jokes, stuffed chipmunks, and Dukes of Hazard posters for a couple of decades.

The Boston Globe's long-awaited paywall is here! Aren't you super-psyched about forking over $3.99 a week to read Boston Globe journalism? Good, because Marty says you're not allowed to read online for free anymore. However: if you'll allow the Globe to hand-deliver its four-pound doorstop of a Sunday print publication to your residence, the price of accessing the new BostonGlobe.

My favorite piece in the fishwrap this week, by a long shot, is former staffwriter Chris Wright's lyrical snapshot of September 10, 2001 -- the day before the day that would live in infamy. It's under 800 words, and it never once mentions September 11. But in the way that it holds New York City suspended in time, it is both the most beautiful and the most terrifying piece I've read in this over-saturated week of 9/11 coverage.

Mainstream media: it's September 10. How's your information? Let's recap, shall we?

Example 1: TALKING POINT MEMO goes down under a distributed denial of service attack -- which may have been retribution for TPM publishing the mugshots of suspected Anonymous hackers.

Example 2: Followers of the NBC News twitter learned of a horrifying airplane attack on ground zero.

News out of Bristol today has Chad Millman taking over as editor in chief of ESPN the Magazine this coming June. It's a great opportunity for Millman, who started with the publication in 1998, and whose work I've always enjoyed. I wrote about Millman -- who does espn.com's outstanding "Behind the Bets" column -- and ESPN's attitude toward its reporters gambling on sports they cover in February (see "Sucker Bet