Goodnight, Moon
The editors
May 2002

We're saddened to have to bid farewell this month to a sister independent paper in Gainesville, the Moon, which has been publishing since 1990. We first knew Mike Podolsky and Colin Whitworth in the 80s, as Alligator reporters covering the movement. Later they came back to town, frustrated with commercial newspaper journalism, to start a paper where they could investigate and write about the things, people, and culture that mattered to them.

Gainesville needed such a publication and it still does. The Sun fails to fulfill the simplest missions of a local paper, promote local culture and fight local corruption (some might say the Sun fights local culture and promotes local corruption). Moon, on the other had, fulfilled these missions and a lot more, calling to task stupid politicians and leaders with their "knucklehead of the month" feature, in depth coverage of local politics, police, race relations, corporate greed, free speech issues, the bogus 'war on drugs,' environmental struggles, and the growing power of the prison-industrial complex, to name a few. Moon was also a founding publication of the Civic Media Center.

Sometimes we disagreed with Moon in these pages. Mostly we were grateful they were stirring things up and fulfilling important roles we are unable to.

When people mention to us the topic of the Moon folding, it's been with a slightly tentative vibe, as though perhaps they think we may feel happy that some "competition" went under. In fact we're very distressed. We suppose that we're meant to feel competitive in a society where everything is regarded as a question of market share and cash. But neither Moon nor the Iguana have ever been in it for the dough. Rather, we both have the goal of more independent media, so people can get political information which is not filtered through the lens of corporate publishers and their advertisers, and culture which is not blended into meaningless goop by these same money-driven forces. We need more of this, not less.

So thank you to all the current and former editors and reporters of Moon for over a decade of good work.

And yes, there is talk of another paper getting started. Watch the sky.

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