AAN News
Tampa Faux-Alt Folds Amid Profanity Flapnew
Media General has pulled the plug on its struggling Orange magazine, reports Creative Loafing Tampa. The closure comes one week after the faux-alt's editor, Mitzi Gordon, was fired for running an article about a fashion designer and her online store, The CUNT Shop. That issue hit the streets a day late after company executives decided to scrap a full run and reprinted the paper with the offending article removed. Orange's publisher says the newspaper, which had shrunk to 20 pages in recent weeks, "didn't meet our business expectations." Gordon tells CL that Media General was never clear about what they wanted from the paper or why they hired her. "I was idealistic," she says. "I was trying to create something that was going to create a buzz. I should have known that Media General wasn't going to stand for my hijinks."
Creative Loafing (Tampa) |
02-01-2007 4:10 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Management
Molly Ivins Dies of Breast Cancer at 62new
The syndicated political columnist passed away Wednesday evening at her home in Austin. Ivins, whose column was syndicated in over 400 newspapers, including several alt-weeklies, served as co-editor of AAN member Texas Observer from 1970 to 1976. Even after leaving the Observer for a larger stage, she remained an ardent supporter of the perpetually insolvent bi-weekly, donating speaking fees and book royalties and continuously helping to raise money for the not-for-profit magazine. For the time being, the Observer has dedicated its entire Web site to remembering Molly.
The Texas Observer |
01-31-2007 11:57 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, The Texas Observer
Nashville Scene Editor's Spouse Tapped As Deputy Mayornew
Music City Mayor Bill Purcell announced last week that he has hired Liz Garrigan's husband Curt as his number two, a post he will fill for eight months. To avoid conflict of interest, Liz Garrigan says in an editor's note that she will recuse herself of all writing and editing duties involving stories "dealing specifically with Purcell, my husband or the mayor's office." She will not shy away from city politics altogether, however, and will continue to weigh in on subjects such as "the upcoming mayor's race, pieces about development and growth, [and] the Metro Council." MORE SCENE NEWS: Former staffer Jeff Woods will rejoin the paper after a stint as an editor for Scripps Howard News Service. Woods, says Garrigan, "will be covering pretty much whatever he damn well wants."
Nashville Scene |
01-31-2007 5:28 pm |
Industry News
Tim Russert Uses Arkansas Times Story to Trip Up Huckabeenew
While he was still the governor of Arkansas, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee arranged for the release of rapist Wayne Dumond, who murdered a woman in Missouri after getting out of jail. When Huckabee appeared on Meet the Press this weekend, he initially denied talking to the parole board about Dumond, but amended his statement when the host (pictured) responded incredulously. "(Russert) obviously had an Arkansas Times article detailing the meeting that led to Dumond’s release," reports the Arkansas Leader in an editorial urging Huckabee to exercise a little "humility." MORE HUCKABEE DISSEMBLING: The ex-governor lies about a report in the Arkansas Times about missing statehouse furniture.
Arkansas Leader |
01-31-2007 5:05 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Arkansas Times
Student Journalist Wins Prize for Story in Independent Weeklynew
Duke University senior Jeffrey Stern has been awarded the Melcher Family Award for Excellence in Journalism for a cover story he wrote for the North Carolina alt-weekly, reports Duke News. The story described the lives of three homeless men living in the woods on the outskirts of Durham, NC. Stern hatched the idea for the Indy piece after editor Richard Hart spoke to his journalism class. "Jeff is a monster, and I mean that in the best sense of word," says Hart. "Just as Michael Jordan uses every muscle in his body when he is focused on playing basketball, every ounce of Jeff is completely geared to going out and getting the story."
Duke News |
01-31-2007 4:58 pm |
Honors & Achievements
Tags: Editorial, Richard Hart
'Ask a Mexican!' Kerfuffle Leaves Employee 'Feeling Leery and Hurt'new
Late last year, Richard Diefenbach was suspended from his job in Newport, Ore., for five days without pay, and accused of racial discrimination and sexual harassment for sharing a copy of Gustavo Arellano's politically incorrect syndicated column with a co-worker. Diefenbach tells The Oregonian that the incident had a deleterious impact. "I have to weigh everything twice before I say it now," he says. "I felt like my organization branded me as something I am not, a racist and a sexist -- a horrible person." Arellano says "Ask a Mexican!" is now syndicated in 21 weeklies with a combined readership of 1.3 million. CORRECTION: Arellano tells us his column is syndicated in papers with a combined circulation (i.e., not readership) of 1.3 million.
The Oregonian |
01-30-2007 2:33 pm |
Industry News
Alt-Weekly Political Columnist Blogs About Cancer Diagnosisnew
Seven Days' Peter Freyne was recently diagnosed with lymphoma and immediately began chemotherapy treatments. He blogged about this turn of events prior to being admitted to the hospital, and his post has attracted dozens of comments, making it a virtual get-well-soon card. Most of the comments are from readers and fans, but several state politicians and even the deputy police chief of Vermont's largest city have weighed in to wish him well, says Seven Days' online editor, Cathy Resmer. Freyne has been writing about Vermont politics since the state's new, socialist senator Bernie Sanders won his first term as mayor of Burlington in 1981. He brought his popular column to Seven Days shortly after the paper was founded in 1995.
Seven Days |
01-30-2007 1:57 pm |
Industry News
Georgia Straight Story Leads to Conflict of Interest Chargesnew
The New Democratic Party launched an attack on the head of the British Columbia's provincial government last week, based on information it learned in an article published in the venerable Vancouver alt-weekly, reports the National Post. In the article, the Straight's Russ Francis reported that Premier Gordon Campbell (pictured) and his wife own shares of stock in mining giant Alcan Inc., which does business with the state-owned water utility.
National Post |
01-29-2007 4:43 pm |
Industry News
Expert: Social Media "Search Engines" Deserve Publishers' Attentionnew
User-driven social content sites like Digg and Reddit are becoming "traffic powerhouses you can't ignore," says search-marketing expert Danny Sullivan. In fact, their rise has given birth to a new discipline that Web publishers now must learn to master: Social media optimization. Sullivan argues that the social content sites, although they are not traditional search engines, are now more important in terms of driving traffic than non-Google search engines like Yahoo!
Search Engine Land |
01-29-2007 4:03 pm |
Industry News
Bay Guardian San Francisco's "Most Politically Influential Publication"new
So claims H. Brown, announcing his 6th Annual Bulldog Awards on the Web site of the Fog City Journal, which calls itself "an online news organization" focusing on Bay Area news. "More balding hippies carry (the Bay Guardian's) Election Day crib sheet into polls than any other rag," explains Brown, who gives his own publication the nod at number two. Brown also says SF Weekly columnist Matt Smith is the city's third-best political writer, even though he's "lost a step" and "(s)eems nuts at times." Smith is brilliant, says Brown: "He can see yesterday, today and tomorrow as one multi-valved heart fed by money, greed and bigotry."
Fog City Journal |
01-29-2007 3:32 pm |
Honors & Achievements
Newspaper Blogs Are Instant "Letters To The Editor"new
The Center for Media Research |
01-29-2007 4:09 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Management
Founding Editor of OC Weekly Steps Downnew
Will Swaim is the second Village Voice Media editor to resign this week over "philosophical differences" with the company's new owners. OC Weekly employees tell the Los Angeles Times that they were expecting the resignation, "because it was apparent that (Swaim's) autonomy to run Orange County's only alternative newspaper had eroded since it was purchased last year by the New Times publishing chain." Swaim tells the Times that his differences with the new owners were on "the business side," and did not pertain to editorial content. "They run a very complicated organization and want to have standardization across all 18 markets," he says. "I don't argue whether it's dumb or wrong. It's just not my way." CORRECTION: VVM has papers in 17 markets.
Los Angeles Times |
01-26-2007 4:03 pm |
Industry News
Bay Guardian: Newspapers Blow Story on MediaNews/Hearst Rulingnew
"The Bay Guardian and Media Alliance have succeeded in getting about 90 percent of the previously secret records in the (MediaNews/Hearst antitrust) case opened to public review," says editor Tim Redmond (pictured). "But you wouldn’t know that from reading the news stories in the monopoly dailies that the suit challenges." The San Francisco Chronicle and the Associated Press both botched the story, claims Redmond, because they ignored the fact that, among other things, the newspaper chains immediately agreed to surrender most of their secret documents when the Bay Guardian and its non-profit partner filed a motion to unseal the records in the case. The Associated Press reporter admitted his mistake, Redmond says: “I plead guilty to leaving out the background,” David Kravets told Redmond, who says the inaccuracies are emblematic of the "monopoly media world of the Bay Area, 2007."
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
01-26-2007 3:34 pm |
Industry News
L.A. Times Shifts Focus, Combines Print and Web Operationsnew
According to a report in the Times, newly installed editor James O'Shea underscored the importance of creating "savvy multimedia journalists" in a gathering of employees yesterday, where he announced the creation of a new position, editor for innovation, and the launch of crash-course "Internet 101" training for editors, reporters and photographers. Nevertheless, O'Shea emphasized that gains in online advertising dollars haven't been enough to offset the loss of print revenues: "For every $2 we lost, we are recouping only about $1." Presently, the Times' Web operation has 18 employees, compared to the Washington Post's 200, and 50 at the New York Times.
Los Angeles Times |
01-25-2007 7:43 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Electronic Publishing
Alt-Weeklies Reveal Sen. Feinstein in Conflict on Military Contractsnew
Metro Silicon Valley and North Bay Bohemian report this week that Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband was a major beneficiary of military appropriations blessed by a subcommittee that she headed, parent company Metro Newspapers announced today in a press release. Feinstein (D-Calif.) approved billions of dollars in military construction expenditures awarded to two firms that were controlled by an investment group headed by the senator’s spouse, financier Richard C. Blum, according to the investigative story by Metro's Peter Byrne. The story "examines the many ways in which Sen. Feinstein committed repeated breaches of ethics as (the subcommittee) chairwoman or ranking member from 2001-2005," according to the release.
Metro Newspapers Press Release |
01-25-2007 7:17 pm |
Industry News
