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On Dec. 8,Watch Porn Story Episode 10 full video LA Weeklyhad a funeral for itself.

Employees and supporters gathered outside the company's office in Culver City. Some held "Boycott LA Weekly" signs. A white coffin held old editions of the paper. It even streamed on Facebook.

The beloved weekly alternative paper, however, isn't dead yet. Rather the group of former writers and editors joined together with supporters to call for its death. The paper had been purchased by a group of mysterious investors, who turned out to be mainly a collection of wealthy conservatives with ties to Orange County (quite the opposite of the typical LA Weekly reader).

There is a casket full of past LA Weekly issues set up right outside the front entrance. #BoycottLAWeekly pic.twitter.com/4RGnEoHDxa

— Alex (@kidalecks) December 8, 2017

It's a scene that has played out in various other cities recently, though maybe with a little less overt symbolism.

SEE ALSO: Gawker killer Peter Thiel may try to buy what's left of Gawker

Houston Press staffers came into the office on the day of Houston Astros' World Series victory parade only to find out that they were all fired. The paper would live on as a digital site, with a team of freelance writers reporting to one editor.

Seattle Weeklydropped its alt-weekly format altogether, opting instead for a "community news weekly," facilitated by a bureau in Bellevue, Washington, and reducing its editorial staff to three employees.

Seattle Weekly paid me to listen to "Enter Sandman" for 24 hrs straight and then write about it. Sad to see the "alt" leave the weekly.

— johnward and upward (@YawnTotten) October 25, 2017

In the online world, billionaire Joe Ricketts completely shut down local New York City news sites DNAinfo and Gothamist, as well as similar sites in several other cities, after employees voted to unionize.

The decline of local press is nothing new. Local media outlets have been shedding jobs for years. Some upstarts have tried to fill those gaps, but the legacy of local journalism startups is littered with failures. This growing vacuum is leaving crucial parts of major cities uncovered, from politics to lively musings on local art scenes.

The cause of this is simple and well-documented. The internet has eroded the advertising business that many of these publications have relied on. With no legitimate model emerging in its place, many publications have turned to wealthy benefactors.

It hasn't turned out well.

What happened to LA Weekly?

In January, Voice Media Group, the Denver-based media company that owns a multitude of alt-weeklies, including Phoenix New Timesand the Houston Press, put the LA Weeklyup for sale in the hope of attracting a "like-minded millionaire/billionaire" who loved "innovation as much as ink stains."

They got the millionaire part right.

In mid-October, the sale of LA Weeklyto Semanal Media was announced, prompting both the media world and the paper's loyal Los Angeles fanbase to ask— who?

And rightfully so. Semanal Media didn't even exist before the sale. According to the LA Times, the entity was created specifically for the purchase of the LA Weekly. No one had any idea of the individuals behind the company or where it was based, not even the staff of the paper (the majority of whom were fired from the publication after the sale).

That's how the article titled Who Owns LA Weekly? ended up on the publication's own website, and how the buyers received a stern condemnation from the Society for Professional Journalists for their "appalling and offensive" lack of transparency.

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It is an absolute outrage that the public doesn’t know who owns @LAWeekly. No media outlet should hide who its owners are, especially one of such prominence in America’s second-largest city. https://t.co/12to3CYQaf

— Society of Professional Journalists (@spj_tweets) November 30, 2017

The veil of secrecy fell in early December when the owners finally revealed themselves. The revelation did little to quell the outcry.

Although the ownership team said they were a "patchwork of people who care about Los Angeles," many, including the Los Angeles Times, didn't hesitate to point out that new LA Weekly head Brian Calle and several other owners had far stronger ties to Orange County than they did to Los Angeles. These new Republican PAC-donating, Orange County real estate-owning investors were nothing like the irreverent Angelenos who knew and loved the publication.

This cultural clash, combined with the disintegration of the paper's editorial staff, brought about the "Boycott LA Weekly" movement, which continues to drive advertisers, partners, and readers from the publication — as well as an overall uncertainty in the future of the L.A.-based alt-weekly.

Digital Dilemma

Since their earliest days, alt-weeklies have relied heavily on selling advertisements in their print editions as a source of revenue. Locals could pick up the publications for free each week, often in busy commuter areas in the city, and check out the latest hyperlocal, culturally-significant happenings in their communities—along with pages of ads.

But, as USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism professor and former Wall Street Journal Los Angeles bureau chief Gabriel Kahn points out, this is no longer how consumers engage with media.

"Readership has diminished because consumer habits changed," Kahn said about the print editions of alt-weeklies. "The way in which we consume media has changed, and that product has not changed."

Cool has always been a commodity, but it's never been cheaper.

In the digital era, print publications are far from the only source of media. And advertisers know this.

There's money to be made where consumers do regularly engage with media—online. But that's also a tricky one. First of all, it's hard for media companies to make money online in the first place when the likes of Facebook and Google are bringing in the majority of digital advertising revenue.

Cultural Capital

So if alt-weeklies are struggling with a viability problem, what do these new buyers have to gain? Kahn says the owners are essentially purchasing the distinct cultural brand that these alt-weeklies have in their communities.

Cool has always been a commodity, but it's never been cheaper.

"There's this disconnect between the economic value and the social-cultural value of media right now," Kahn said. "The economic value has diminished tremendously. The social-cultural value is still pretty strong in many ways."

This is exactly why it was such a big deal to the people of Los Angeles when a bunch of businessmen from Orange County bought their beloved LA Weekly. Jeff Weiss, who quit writing his "Bizarre Ride"column for the L.A.-based alt-weekly after the sale to Semanal Media, articulated his frustrations to the Pacific Standard.

"I don't know how anyone who's not from L.A. would know how to handle L.A. To me, that's the ultimate act of disrespect to the city," Weiss said.

He now is one of the leaders of the "Boycott LA Weekly" movement.

Our goal is to see them restored under new ownership so that the proud tradition of LA Weekly can endure in the 21st century. Thank you for your support. It's incredible and I promise we will win this. Let's go even harder next week. #BoycottLAWeekly pic.twitter.com/0U5ftQ8Y39

— Otto Von Biz Markie (@Passionweiss) December 11, 2017

There's meaning behind the "alt" in "alt-weekly." While a city's flagship local paper covers the most prominent news in town, alternative local news sources are able to go beyond the mainstream, digging deeper into the fabric of the city to bring something new to its natives.

This is how LA Weekly covered the rise of famed Compton-born rapper Kendrick Lamar; how Eli Sanders won a Pulitzer Prize for telling the story of 'The Bravest Woman in Seattle' in the city's alt-weekly The Stranger;it's how the Houston Press's 1998 expose about police and prosecutors withholding evidence relating to the wrongful murder conviction of Roy Criner led to a pardon from then-governor George W. Bush.

What now?

The future of local publications looks bleak. Washington City Paperis up for sale in the nation's capital, with Mother Jonesreporting that conservative businessman Armstrong Williams is interested. In the meantime, the entire staff of the paper will take a 40 percent pay cut in the new year, Mark Segraves of NBC Washington reports.

Entire Staff at @wcp told today by SouthComm they will have to take 40% pay cut starting Jan 1. Still looking for a buyer of alt weekly City Paper.

— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) December 18, 2017

Neighborhood news site BKLYNER (which primarily serves Brooklyn, New York) is begging readers to subscribe before it is too late.

While the rich and powerful will probably continue to buy and sell media companies like they're any other asset, consumers aren't completely helpless in this harrowing media world.

Kahn urged readers to be "intentional, critical consumers of media" in much the same way that alt newspapers produced their journalism: Intentionally and critically.

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