AAN News
Creative Loafing Editor's Award-Winning Reporting Spawns Booknew
Mara Shalhoup's BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family, which is being published by St. Martin's Press, is due to hit stores next week. The book springs from Shalhoup's 2006 award-winning three-part series in Creative Loafing (Atlanta), "BMF: Hip-hop's shadowy empire," which examined the rise of the Black Mafia
Family, a cocaine-trafficking network with ties to a music label and various violent crimes in Atlanta. BMF leaders Big Meech and his brother Southwest T are each currently serving 30-year sentences.
BMFBook.com |
02-26-2010 10:56 am |
Industry News
Salt Lake City Weekly Logo is One of Many in 'Logorama'new
Of the 2,500 or so recognizable brand logos that make up the Oscar-nominated French short film Logorama, only one belongs to an AAN member. That honor goes to Salt Lake City Weekly, which appears briefly (around the 11-minute mark) in the 16-minute animated short.
Salt Lake City Weekly |
02-25-2010 2:21 pm |
Industry News
Survey: Newspaper Sites Most Trusted Local News Sourcenew
A comScore survey done for the Newspaper Association of America finds that newspaper websites are the most-visited and most-trusted sources for local news and information, outpacing local radio and TV websites, portals, and speciality and social networking websites. Approximately 57 percent of the 3,050 respondents said newspaper sites were the top online source for local information; that percentage grew for upper income households (63 percent) and for the college educated (60 percent).
Newspaper Association of America |
02-25-2010 11:50 am |
Industry News
Long Island Press Turns Cover Story into Standalone Multimedia Site
The Press recently developed a multimedia site to accompany a cover story on Long Island's Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center and its holocaust survivors as part of its attempt to find new ways to present its journalism. Publisher Jed Morey tells AAN News it is all tied into the company's recent expansion of video journalism, which includes hiring a full-time video journalist. "It has really energized the staff and brought a whole new perspective to our reporting, because his pitches are so unique," Morey says. "Part of our growth this year is online and we're making original video a huge part of that initiative."
AAN News |
02-25-2010 11:22 am |
Industry News
Class-Action Suit Alleges Yelp is Running an 'Extortion Scheme'new
Two law firms have filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court alleging unfair business practices by the popular user-generated review site. The suit's plaintiff, a veterinary hospital, allegedly requested Yelp remove a negative review from the website. The suit says the company refused to do so, a move that was followed by repeated calls from Yelp sales reps demanding payments of roughly $300 per month in exchange for hiding or deleting the review. The East Bay Express explored similar charges in-depth last year. Yelp denied everything in the Express' coverage, and went as far as to attack the reporter for being inaccurate. Regarding the class-action suit, a Yelp representative calls the allegations "demonstrably false" and says the company will "dispute [the suit] aggressively."
TechCrunch |
02-25-2010 8:48 am |
Industry News
Phoenix New Times Staffer Fights 'Aesthetic Atrophy' with Music Blognew
New Times editorial operations manager Jay Bennett, a 40-year-old music fan and musician, is authoring the "Nothing Not New" blog, where each weekday, he listens to one new record and writes about it. Music editor Martin Cizmar says the project springs from Bennett's "aesthetic atrophy," an "unavoidable consequence of aging" defined as the "wasting away of the ability to appreciate new, different, or avant-garde music." Checking in a little more than two months into the year-long experiment, Bennett says it has been "fun, but difficult," adding: "It's like traveling abroad for two weeks but really missing American junk food after day 10, or dining out so much that you've forgotten the simple joy of preparing and eating a home-cooked meal."
Phoenix New Times |
02-25-2010 8:32 am |
Industry News
Nielsen: U.S. '09 Ad Spend Down 9 Percentnew
Media Daily News |
02-25-2010 9:01 am |
Industry News
110 Days and Counting: Chicago Reader Still Waiting on Mayor Daley Interview Requestnew
Chicago Reader |
02-25-2010 8:35 am |
Industry News
OC Weekly Investigation Leads to Prison Time for AIDS Doctornew
Nine and a half years after OC Weekly's R. Scott Moxley broke the story about well-known AIDS doctor George Steven Kooshian having injected patients with saline and vitamins instead of the expensive drugs they were billed for, the 59-year-old was sentenced Monday to 15 months in federal prison. Kooshian was also ordered to pay $660,955 in restitution to 18 insurance companies for 21 patients who were subdosed.
OC Weekly |
02-24-2010 12:50 pm |
Industry News
Discounted NewsU Webinar on Mobile News Production Next Wednesday
AAN members have the opportunity to participate in a live webinar from Poynter's NewsU that focuses on mobile media and producing news in the digital age. "Mobile Media 101: Producing News with Your Smartphone" is scheduled for Wednesday, March 3, at 2 pm Eastern time. The first 25 AAN registrants using the AAN discount code will get a special rate of $9.95.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
02-24-2010 11:47 am |
Association News
Erik Wemple Says His New Job is 'an Enormous Opportunity'
After announcing yesterday that he was leaving Washington City Paper to edit a new local news website being launched by Allbritton Communications (the folks behind Politico), Wemple and Allbritton's Jim Brady made the media rounds to talk about the move. Here are some highlights:
- Wemple tells Politico he's excited about the potential of the new site: "I think the possibilities, the horizons, really open up if you look at the talent and the resources that are behind this."
- The site will try to incorporate work from Politico and Allbritton's two local TV operations, Wemple tells the Washington Post: "We're hoping to really carve some new ground as to how a TV and web operation can mutually reinforce themselves."
- Brady explains to Washington Business Journal why he hired Wemple: "When you read the City Paper, you get a sense they're really having fun. That's not happening in a ton of places in journalism these days."
- Wemple says he hopes to launch the site with between 15 and 20 reporters; DCist wonders if any will be current City Paper staffers.
AAN News |
02-24-2010 9:56 am |
Industry News
Gambit Picks Up Longtime Times-Picayune Columnistnew
Pulitzer-nominee Chris Rose, who took a buyout from the New Orleans daily last fall, has begun writing a column -- "Rose-Colored Glasses" -- for the Gambit. In his first piece, Rose talks about leaving the Times-Picayune after 25 years, and his new life as a freelancer. "Over the past year or two, I have cast about for alternative ideas to the Big City Daily," he writes. "I'm a newspaperman through and through, a wretched, ink-stained malcontent for whom information is currency and life is spent on one harrowing deadline after another, and I consider the job done well only if you have ruined somebody else's day."
Gambit |
02-24-2010 8:44 am |
Industry News
Washington City Paper Editor Erik Wemple is Leaving the Papernew
Wemple told the City Paper staff this morning that he's leaving in mid-March to edit a new local news website being launched by Allbritton Communications. Wemple has been affiliated with City Paper on and off since 1994, and has edited the alt-weekly since 2002. Wemple says Jim Brady, the former editor of Washingtonpost.com whom Albritton tapped to lead the new project, wants the new site to have the "Washington City Paper voice and feel and sense of authority about local stuff."
Washington City Paper |
02-23-2010 11:57 am |
Industry News
True/Slant Columnist Picks Two Alt-Weekly Pieces as 2009's Bestnew
Conor Friedersdorf, in his annual roundup of the year's best journalism, spotlights two very different pieces from alt-weeklies as exemplary work. First, Mark Groubert's "Box of Broken Dreams," which appeared in LA Weekly in January, gets a nod for "Exceptional Storytelling," along with pieces from This American Life, the Washington Post and Esquire. Meanwhile, Matt Taibbi's New York Press takedown of Thomas Friedman -- "Flat N All That" -- gets the nod for "Best Rant," with Friedersdorf writing that it puts Friedman "so far up a creek he'll need three shovels and a steering wheel to spelunk himself out."
True/Slant |
02-23-2010 11:45 am |
Industry News
Miami New Times Brings On Former 2 Live Crew Frontman as Columnistnew
While its sister paper Seattle Weekly counts rockers Krist Novoselic (of Nirvana fame) and Duff McKagan (from Guns N' Roses) as columnists, Miami New Times has brought on Luther Campbell, the former leader of raunch-rappers 2 Live Crew, to write a column. "It's the perfect place for me. I am a free-speech guy," Campbell says. "It's just a match made in Heaven. Can you believe that? Me turned loose on the world in New Times. Wow."
Miami New Times |
02-23-2010 10:23 am |
Industry News
