AAN Association of Alternative Newsmedia

Artvoice Disappears From Gov't Building Week Before Election

november 10, 2011 04:44 pm

200 copies of Artvoice mysteriously disappeared from a government building last week, the same week the paper ran a cover story on Erie County Executive Chris Collins, who was running for re-election:

[Artvoice]’s wild popularity notwithstanding, the last time such a run on the paper at the county building occurred was when we published a Bruce Fisher article critical of Erie County Executive Chris Collins’s sense of humor: He had compared New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, an orthodox Jew, to Hitler and the Antichrist. Those papers suddenly disappeared, too. We filed a FOIL request to see the surveillance camera footage for the previous 24 hours from the two cameras that record everything that goes on in the entrance lobby where the papers are left every Thursday. The request was ultimately denied on the grounds that it would compromise the building’s security plan.

The disappearance of the article — which can still be found online here — didn't prevent Collins from losing his re-election bid on Tuesday night.

View full article at Artvoice