AAN News
Call for Entries: 2008 AltWeekly Awards
The 2008 AltWeekly Awards is now accepting entries. AAN's Editorial Committee has made several changes to the contest. For the first time, all entries in the Writing categories must be submitted as URLs or PDFs. The contest will only accept hard copies of materials in the Cartoon, Special Section or Design categories. In addition, the committee added two new categories, Innovation and Public Service, and eliminated four others: Ad Design, Format Buster, Website Content Feature and Wild Card. In the Cartoon category, all entrants will compete in one division. The contest website will close on the contest deadline, Fri., Jan. 25, 2008 at midnight (EST).
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
12-03-2007 9:36 am |
Association News
Medill to Administer AltWeekly Awards Contest
AAN's Editorial Committee will continue to work with staff to select the categories each year and supervise the contest, while Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism will take over the day-to-day activities. AAN decided to look into having a third-party administrator after receiving record numbers of participating members and entries since the contest went online three years ago. Medill was a great fit, since the school already had a standing relationship with AAN. "Ultimately, I want people to think of AAN and Medill the way they think of Columbia and the Pulitzers or Harvard and the Nieman fellowship," says Medill professor Charles Whitaker, who will work with AAN editorial projects manager Heather Kuldell on the 2008 Awards to ensure a smooth transition.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
11-29-2007 12:57 pm |
Association News
Web Publishing Conference Program Set
This year's conference will be held Jan. 30 to Feb. 1 in San Francisco, and is
designed for alt-weekly publishers, editors, electronic publishing
personnel, and any other employees with responsibility for their paper's
website. After two "big-picture" presentations by the New York Times' Nick Bilton and Tacoda Systems' Dave
Morgan, the conference will be dedicated to practical, nuts-and-bolts
programming on topics such as user-generated content, online video, blogging, tagging and social bookmarking, search-engine optimization,
web analytics, social networking, legal issues and the mobile internet. For more information, or to register, visit the conference website.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
11-26-2007 12:56 pm |
Association News
'Cry Us a River of Frappucino,' Says Salt Lake City Weeklynew
"Why can't I, as a fellow weekly-newspaper guy, muster up much sympathy for the Shepherd Express?," asks Weekly associate editor Bill Frost in response to yesterday's news that Milwaukee's alt-weekly was having some distribution issues involving the local daily (and its free weekly) and coffee giant Starbucks. "Because City Weekly has never been allowed into Salt Lake City Starbucks; at least the Express had a foot in the door for a while," he writes. "Now, just as Salt Lake City residents have for years, Milwaukee-ites will have to sip their overpriced Charbucks while reading an inferior knockoff of a weekly that has an exclusive, paid-for in."
Salt Lake City Weekly |
11-20-2007 8:33 am |
Industry News
Daily Paper Tries To Get Shepherd Express Removed From Starbucksnew
"We were thrown out of Starbucks because of a deal the Journal Sentinel cut with Starbucks' regional office, where the Journal Sentinel demanded that the Shepherd Express be excluded from Starbucks newspaper racks," writes Express publisher and editor-in-chief Louis Fortis. The Sentinel-owned free weekly MKE then ran an ad claiming it was "the exclusive free weekly" available at Starbucks stores around Milwaukee. But a regional manager says "the decision as to whether a particular Starbucks carries the Shepherd will be at the discretion of each individual store manager." The controversy with the coffee giant comes as the paper celebrates its 25th anniversary. In this week's cover story, assistant editor Lisa Kaiser traces the Express' journey from "a monthly 'free expression magazine' by English majors at UW-Milwaukee" to what it is today.
Shepherd Express |
11-19-2007 12:15 pm |
Industry News
Alt-Weekly Reporter Takes Issue With 'Hey, That's Not an Alt-Weekly'new
Dave Maass, currently a staff writer at the Santa Fe Reporter, doesn't think it was fair of AAN executive director Richard Karpel to single out Santa Fe's The Sun News in his inaugural column this week. "I've read the full piece four or five times now, and I can't find a single cogent argument why The Sun can't be an alternative newspaper," Maass writes. "What right does [Karpel] have to censor the words 'alternative' and 'newspaper' from being used, by his own admission, quite properly to describe The Sun? We're all standing up, speaking out, aren't we?" He adds: "Obviously, The Sun News isn't an alt-weekly in the contemporary conventional sense. But surely there's room in the taxonomy for them." More blog response to Karpel's column here, here, and here. UPDATE: Dave Maass has also posted a follow-up.
Maassive.com |
11-16-2007 11:28 am |
Industry News
Library Board Votes Not to Remove Phoenix New Timesnew
The decision handed down last night by the Chandler Public Library Board ended a mini-brouhaha in this Phoenix suburb. It all started a few months ago, when Larry Edwards made public his objection to New Times being available at a library branch shared by a high school. The board also ruled that George Carlin's audiobook When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? would stay in the library.
East Valley Tribune |
11-16-2007 7:56 am |
Industry News
ABC to Change Daily Newspaper Circ Calculationsnew
Mediaweek |
11-16-2007 9:33 am |
Industry News
Willamette Week Publisher: We're Enjoying Great Healthnew
In his annual report to readers, Richard Meeker says that despite "the gloom-and-doom reports" on newspapers across the country, Willamette Week's story in 2007 "is anything but a tale from the crypt." He notes that "this will be the paper's best year ever in display sales," with sales up 7.6 percent over 2006. And although classifieds continue to decline, with sales down about $115,000, total revenue at the paper is expected to be up 4 or 5 percent from last year, with pre-tax profit expected to be about 5 percent. "If [the paper was] owned by a media conglomerate, co-owner Mark Zusman and I would have been relieved of our responsibilities long ago for unsatisfactory financial performance," Meeker writes. "While we certainly could be a little more efficient, we feel it would seriously harm the culture of our operation to try to match national averages calling for profits two to three times greater than ours."
Willamette Week |
11-15-2007 9:08 am |
Industry News
Hey, That's Not an Alt-Weekly!
According to AAN executive director Richard Karpel, reporters often
mistakenly apply the term "alternative newspaper" to the wrong publications.
So in an effort to "make some small contribution to human understanding and
the brand equity of our member papers," he decided to note every time he
sees the term used incorrectly. In this first edition of "Hey,
That's Not an Alt-Weekly!" -- an irregular series devoted to the correct use of
the term "alternative newspaper" and all its variants -- Karpel explains what an alternative newspaper is and why The Sun News in Santa Fe, N.M., doesn't qualify.
(FULL STORY)
AAN News |
11-14-2007 8:07 am |
Industry News
Bay Area Publishers Catch Newspaper Thieves in the Act
Last month, the publishers of OPEN EXCHANGE MAGAZINE, a quarterly directory magazine in the Bay Area, began wondering why many of their news boxes were suspiciously empty. They started staking out locations in the early morning hours, and last week, they caught two people stealing their magazines, along with the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, San Francisco Bay Guardian and others. Since California law makes it a crime to steal more than 25 copies of any free
paper, they filed this report with the Oakland Police Department.
(FULL STORY)
AAN News |
11-13-2007 8:11 am |
Industry News
Former Mountain XPress Staffer Lands at Newly Launched Competitornew
Cecil Bothwell, who was fired from the XPress last month, is now a business partner in and news editor of Asheville City Paper. The paper, which is being started by the independent weekly Columbia City Paper, will be monthly at first and hopes to go bi-weekly by Spring. A press release posted at Bothwell's blog says the City Paper, "targeting an 18-45 liberal demographic, will feature hard-hitting investigative journalism and will cover national politics, local news and music." Managing editor Todd Morehead tells the Ashvegas blog: "We're all super excited and Cecil already has a gutsy investigative piece in the works that he says Mountain Xpress was 'too timid' to publish."
Mountain XPress |
11-12-2007 12:31 pm |
Industry News
AAN Membership Application Process Begins
AAN is now accepting applications for the 2007-08 membership year. Alternative newspapers that are interested in applying for membership in the association can download an application here (PDF file). Applications must be received in the AAN office in Washington, D.C. by Dec. 31 to be eligible. As papers that have run the gauntlet know, the AAN membership process is rigorous. To learn more about how the association determines whether a paper qualifies for membership, we encourage potential applicants to read our membership guidelines -- there is a short version and a long version (Word doc). For questions about the process, papers should contact Debra Silvestrin at 202-289-8484 or debra (at) aan.org.
AAN Staff |
11-08-2007 11:25 am |
Association News
Web Audience Metric Provides Hope to Declining Circ Dailiesnew
The Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Newspaper Association of America, and Scarborough Research have developed Audience-FAX, a new measurement that combines newspaper circulation, readership and online audience, Editor & Publisher reports. In a conference call, industry leaders said that the new metric calls attention to the "full reach" of newspapers at a time when much of the media attention is on the decline of newspaper sales. More than 200 daily papers are participating in the Audience-FAX program.
Editor & Publisher |
11-05-2007 2:17 pm |
Industry News
Orlando Weekly Drops Adult Ads This Week; Cops Release Transcriptnew
"Adult services will not be running this week because Orlando Weekly cannot ensure that doing so will not result in additional arrests of its employees by local police," reads the page in the alt-weekly where such ads would ordinarily appear. Instead, the paper printed the text of the First Amendment. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation has released a transcript from the investigation that led to last week's arrests, but the Weekly's attorney cautions against reading too much into it. "We should not rush to judgment based on the release of a transcript from a single conversation from a two-year investigation," Bill Schaefer tells Local 6 TV. "We should examine the propriety of the release of potential evidence prior to judicial proceedings. It may deny the defendants a fair and impartial trial."
News 13 Central Florida | WFTV | Local 6 TV |
10-25-2007 11:43 am |
Industry News
