Charlotte loses its alt-weekly, again

Catch up quick: Queen City Nerve, created by former Creative Loafing staffers Ryan Pitkin and Justin LaFrancois, filled the void left when that alt-weekly shuttered abruptly in 2018.

The latest: The closure comes after Queen City Nerve announced it was halting print publication earlier this month. In a farewell letter, Pitkin and LaFrancois explained that a deal with a potential buyer fell through.

• The publication said it was steadily growing for six years but ran into financial hardships last year and it hasn't bounced back.

What they're saying: "This is part of a larger pattern that's been slowly unfolding across the country," Pitkin and LaFrancois wrote. "As we witness the rise of unsourced 'influencer' journalists and AI-generated news stories, we believe as strongly as ever in the importance of well-sourced, independent community journalism."