The Liverpool Post newspaper is to close down next week after 158 years publication.
Its website will cease operation on the same date, December 19.
Owned by Trinity Mirror, the paper, based in Old Hall Street, went from daily to weekly in January 2012, and many observers felt then that the writing was on the wall.
Nevertheless, today's announcement has come as a shock to many.
'Heaviest of hearts'
Trinity blamed the digital era for the paper's decline in circulation and advertising revenue: “The Post is a wonderful and much-loved old lady who has simply come to the end of her natural life," said North West Managing Director Steve Anderson Dixon.
“This is a decision we take with the heaviest of hearts. Sadly, the Liverpool city region no longer generates the demand in terms of advertising or circulation, to sustain both the Post and the Liverpool Echo.
Post Editor Mark Thomas said: “It has been a privilege and an honour to edit this great newspaper and having to share this news with its readers is without doubt the saddest moment of my professional career.
“On behalf of the team I would like to thank all our loyal readers for their support and encouragement over the years, and I hope they understand how difficult this decision has been for all of us.”
The statement addded: "No journalist jobs are being lost as a result of the closure," and it is perhaps that last comment that says it all.
Many journalists feel the Post has suffered from a lack of journalistic resources.
As a weekly, it could have had the capacity to continue as Merseyside’s paper of record.
At one time, perhaps its heyday, it was a robust rival to its Old Hall Street sister, the Echo, with journalists on each paper bidding to scoop one other while sitting at opposite desks.
For whatever reason, the weekly format just never caught the imagination of readers, and the decline continued.
Poll
Some people believed the Post was an anti-dote to the Echo which highlights Merseyside’s world of crime, gun battles and the seedier side of life in the city region.
Just weeks ago the business lobbying group Downtown Liverpool in Business conducted a poll among its members asking whether they believed news coverage in the Echo harmed the city. The response was a resounding yes.
I spent most of my working life at the Liverpool Echo and the Liverpool Daily Post, writing for both papers with their distinctive styles.
Just as the switch to new technology brought the curtain down on hot metal newspapers in the early 1990s, it seems the age of electronic media has been a death rattle for many fine newspapers.
The big problem is this: who will watch the decision makers with the closure and demise of local newspapers?
