AAN News
Gun-Toting Gays Won't Be Victimsnew
Orange County’s Pink Pistols are all for peace, love and understanding among
straights and gays. Meantime, they’re taking target practice, and the motto of the national organization is "Armed gays don’t get
bashed." Members -- gay, lesbian and straight -- want to avoid victimization and find the Pink Pistols more to their taste than the NRA. "The point is bullies might be far less inclined to screw with
someone who’s packing," Steve Lowery writes in OC Weekly.
Owner of Gay Newspaper Chain Behind NY Press Purchasenew
New York-based Avalon Equity Partners is now the majority owner of both the New York Press and Window Media, which operates a number of gay weeklies, including the New York Blade News and the Washington Blade. Cynthia Cotts of The Village Voice writes that the gay media worries about Avalon's ownership, fearing a private equity company with no gay credentials will undermine the integrity of their product. David W. Unger, co-founder
and managing partner of Avalon, insists that neither the Press nor the gay publications will lose their identities simply by being connected through a mutual investor. Unger says the Press should make money "with just a little hands-on management."
Village Voice |
01-14-2003 3:57 pm |
Industry News
New Breed Conservative Forced to Resignnew
After declaring his split with conservatives and the administration's war policy in Seattle Weekly, Philip Gold, an old-line right-wing intellectual, has resigned his post as a defense analyst at
Seattle's conservative Discovery Institute, Seattle Times reports. Gold, who has also been on talk radio debating Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger, says, "Conservatives have lost their soul," but he can't join the "blame-America-first-crowd" either.
Seattle Times |
01-14-2003 12:33 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Seattle Weekly
Body Solutions: Lose Weight While You Sleepnew
The LA Weekly's Nancy Updike reports on the rise and fall of one more fad diet --
the no-fuss Body Solutions plan. "Eat
whatever you want, don't worry about exercising, and then just stop eating and drinking three hours
before bed and take one tablespoonful of Body Solutions' Evening Weight Loss Formula with a
glass of water right before you go to sleep. Watch the pounds melt off." Shortly after Updike's first interview with the company's main researcher, Body Solutions was bankrupt and being sued by the Federal Trade Commission. The story is
part of LA Weekly's "Body Politic," a five-story package on body image.
AAN Seeks Sales Manager
AAN Staff |
01-14-2003 1:13 pm |
Industry News
Alt-Weekly Readers Remain Forever Youngnew
Yes, alternative weekly readers are aging, but that's mainly because "there are just too many people in America getting too damn old," argues John Morrison of the Alternative Weekly Network. Analyzing Media Audit data, Morrison establishes conclusively that alternative weekly readers between the ages 35-54 are actually younger than the general population of 18 to 34-year-olds. Well, maybe they're not physically younger, but they go to more movies, attend more concerts, ride their bicycles more often, and even drink more beer than the Gen X and Y'ers who are young enough to be their children. If they had any children, that is.
AWN AdRap |
01-13-2003 3:13 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Marketing
Antitrust Probe Proceeds at Unusually Rapid Pacenew
Prosecutors investigating the New Times-Village Voice Media deal that closed New Times LA and Cleveland Free Times worked through the weekend taking depositions, according to the L.A. Times' Tim Rutten. Sources familiar with the depositions told Rutten that prosecutors "repeatedly returned to questions concerning the nature of alternative journalism and the impact of New Times' closure on local news coverage." One unidentified witness said many of the prosecutors' questions "seemed to be driven by their belief that unlike a mainstream daily newspaper, an alternative weekly is suffused throughout with a particular point of view. They seem to believe that losing an alternative paper is a greater hardship to the community in that way than losing a mainstream daily."
Los Angeles Times |
01-13-2003 12:09 pm |
Industry News
Florida Police Don't Need No Stinkin' Warrantnew
Florida police have perfected the art of
sweet-talking their way into homes, neatly
circumventing the Fourth Amendment. Orlando Weekly's William Dean Hinton looks at what cops call "knock-and-talk," or "knock-and-announce." Sounds innocent, but isn't, Hinton concludes.
Wall Street Journal Weighs in on New Times/VVMnew
"We're relieved the Justice Department
has decided to draw a line in the sand in this case," Michael Lacey, executive editor of New Times, sarcastically tells LA business columnist, Daniel Akst. The columnist chides New Times and Village Voice Media for being sanctimonious about the evils of "big-city dailies" but concedes Lacey's point: "If a generation's worth of
media consolidation is OK because of new technologies and competition between
broadcasters, print outlets, the Internet and so forth, it probably shouldn't be a
hanging offense that a couple of unsuccessful weeklies are closing in concert."
WSJ Opinion Journal |
01-10-2003 4:26 pm |
Industry News
Maine Times Founder is Dead at 79new
John Cole, co-founder of former
AAN-member Maine Times, died
Tuesday of
cancer. He was 79. Co-founder Peter Cox
describes Cole as "a beautiful writer and
passionate
about everything." Jay Davis, the
crusading weekly's former editor,
said that Cole
occasionally
made people
angry, but he was passionate
about issues
affecting the state he loved.
"People who
read the Times admired
his spirit,"
Davis tells the Portland Press Herald.
Portland Press Herald |
01-09-2003 11:57 am |
Industry News
Utah Environmentalists Take on the Sierra Clubnew
Has the Sierra Club become just another faction of the Democratic Party? Four Utah environmentalists find themselves in the forefront of a nationwide revolt against the leadership of the club for putting politics ahead of the environment. The primary object of their ire? Executive Director Carl Pope. "But critics say the 700,000-member strong organization with an estimated $80 million annual budget is now nothing more than a glorified hiking club
that has sold out the environment to get buddy-buddy with Democratic politicians," Shane McCammon writes.
