Digg it!2010 has been dubbed the year of recovery. The economy, at the very least, has stopped falling. International politics is seeing new superpower emerging and international arts has opened new avenues for new arts and artists to flourish.
But we have also lost many valuable things. Here are some whose effects we are going to feel for years to come.
10. National Geographic Adventure/National Geographic
National Geographic Adventure debuted in 1999 and has documented for us the many wonders of this world. It made us appreciate the greatest miracles in this land we feel we are so familiar with. It shed light to many questions we had or never thought we had about how things work around us. In the end, it gave us a better understanding of who we are in relation to where we are. But the brutal economic climate pulled it down in 2009. Its ad pages fell 35% in 2009. The editor in chief since its introduction, John Rasmus, and 16 other employees are losing their jobs as a result.
9. Movie Gallery
There is something intimate and warm about seeing a film at home, having to trudge to the video rental store for a VHS version of, say, Ghost? For Movie Gallery, those were the good old days… before Netflix, Redbox, internet and piracy.
Movie Gallery filed for bankruptcy for the second time, and subsequently announced it was closing all of its locations.
At one time this rental chain had more than 4,500 outlets.
8. Nodar Kumaritashvili
Deaths at the Olympics are blessedly rare. That rare moment happened in this year’s Summer Olympics.
Kumaritashvili qualified for the luge men’s singles event at the 2010 Winter Olympics, which would be his Olympic debut. On February 12, 2010, Kumaritashvili crashed during a training run at the Whistler Sliding Centre when he lost control in the final turn of the course and was thrown off his luge and over the sidewall of the track, striking an unprotected steel support pole at the end of the run.
7. Pontiac, Mercury and Hummer
I know it is politically insensitive to feel bad about losing a car like the Hummer but I can’t help it. I feel that it is one of those things that is all American.
Hummer is not the only one that has been retired – Pontiac and Mercury too.
GM’s Pontiac brand began back in 1926, and was best known for its high-performance models like the legendary GTO. Mercury, made by Ford, was mostly the same make of car as Ford, just with different trim and amenities.
The Hummer brand was originally applied to military vehicles produced by AM General, particularly the famous HMMWV (Hum-Vee). GM bought the rights to the name in 1998 and put out a line of street-legal vehicles mimicking the design of the military vehicles. GM unsuccessfully attempted to sell the brand.
6. AirTran
AirTran began as ValuJet in 1992. After a devastating crash in the Florida Everglades in 1996, it was found to have significant quality problems due to its extreme cost-cutting. After merging with Airways Corp. in 1997, it changed its name to AirTran.
AirTran will continue to operate as an independent airline while the $1.4 billion transaction passes muster, it’s only a matter of time before the AirTran brand is retired formally.
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Hey Rich I can’t help thinking that reeaislng documents widely threatens to be a rather successful deterrent. Think of how much time and money a newsroom has to dedicate to properly executing FOIs from the initial ask (which costs money) to the months of phoning, letter-writing, appealing and possibly paying more money to cover photocopy charges . In newsrooms with fewer and fewer time and cash resources, knowing there is a risk all the effort won’t pay off with a scoop may make it more likely newsrooms put FOIs on the backburner altogether. I acknowledge wanting to get the best story out there and wanting to serve the public interest shouldn’t allow requests to go to the backburner, but I wonder how many reporters would pay out of their own pockets to pursue FOI requests to the end without support from their employers?Of course, getting back to the notion of public interest, I doubt this is one of those issues that will really light a fire under non-journalists .