The Boston Courant


The Boston Courant was a weekly newspaper in Boston, whose coverage focused on issues of local interest to the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Downtown, Fenway, South End, and Waterfront neighborhoods. It had a circulation of over 40,000.
The Boston Courant announced its closure in February 2016 after losing a wrongful termination lawsuit. In April 2016, the former publisher debuted the Boston Guardian, with similar editorial content and neighborhood coverage.
An African-American newspaper by the same name was founded by George Washington Forbes in 1890 and discontinued in 1895.

Establishment

Publisher David Jacobs created the Boston Courant in 1995, with his wife Genevieve Tracy as Associate Editor. In a Boston Globe article, Jacobs stated that the Courant experienced double-digit growth from 2008 to 2009.

Sections

The paper introduced a real estate section in 2008, named "Open House". Later renamed the "Real Estate Guide", the section featured editorial copy and advertisements from Boston real estate agents as well as maps of upcoming open houses.

Online

In 2004, the publisher, David Jacobs, paid a web designer $50,000 to put the newspaper online, but the site never launched due to the lack of a profitable business plan. Jacobs believed that if the Courant had a website some of the readers would abandon the print format, crippling profitable advertising sales.

Successor publication

In April 2016, the previous publisher of the defunct Boston Courant debuted a reborn publication under the new banner of the Boston Guardian, serving the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Downtown, Fenway, South End, and North End/Waterfront districts of Boston. The new publication's title stirred up some controversy over the alleged appropriation of a historic journalistic name.