AAN News
Handful of Alt-Weekly Pieces End Up in 'Best Food Writing 2009'
AAN News has just received a copy of Da Capo's Best Food Writing 2009, and it is chock full of alt-weekly talent. Included in the collection are stories from City Pages' Rachel Hutton ("Spam: It's Not Just for Inboxes Anymore"), New Times Broward-Palm Beach's John Linn ("Highway to Hog Heaven"), SF Weekly's Peter Jamison ("Out of the Wild"), The Stranger's Bethany Jean Clement ("The Beauty of the Beast"), Washington City Paper's Tim Carman ("How Not to Hire a Chef"), and Westword's Jason Sheehan ("The Last of the Great $10 Steaks"). The book also includes a selection from Houston Press food writer Robb Walsh's book on oysters, and is slated to be released this fall.
AAN News |
09-02-2009 4:54 pm |
Honors & Achievements
Comedian Misidentified as Westword Writer Fights Back
Tom Martino, a nationally syndicated talk radio host and Denver-area TV personality known as The Troubleshooter, recently went after Westword writer Jared Jacang Maher for a story Maher had written on him. Problem was, in his video attacking Maher as a "cowardly writer," Martino grabbed a picture off the internet of comedian and former Westword staffer Adam Cayton-Holland wearing Maher's name tag at an event and said it was Maher. Now Cayton-Holland has responded with a story and the video below.
AAN News |
08-28-2009 12:35 pm |
Industry News
Mountain XPress Celebrates 15th Anniversary
After running the monthly "activist publication" Green Line for seven years, Jeff Fobes launched Mountain XPress on Aug. 10, 1994. The Asheville, N.C., weekly takes a look back with a special issue featuring a timeline of milestones and commentaries from ad director James Fisher and Fobes, who discusses -- among other things -- the shift from monthly to weekly. "[It] was an astonishing experience. The pace picked up fourfold, and it never let up," he writes. "Our tiny staff lived and breathed the audacity of the effort, working for paltry pay (though we had, thankfully, closed the multiyear chapter of working for no pay)."
AAN News |
08-19-2009 8:53 am |
Honors & Achievements
Village Voice Classified Ad Sets Film Plot in Motion
We missed the news of the feature film WTC View when it was released in 2005, but this month Logo is airing the movie, which uses a Voice classified ad as plot springboard, so we figured we'd let you know about it. "[The] film is about a young gay man who places an ad in the Village Voice for a roommate the night before September 11," according to the Los Angeles Times' synopsis. "In the coming weeks, he desperately interviews potential roomies to share his pad that has -- you guessed it -- a WTC view."
AAN News |
08-11-2009 8:53 am |
Industry News
Editor of Wired Magazine is Bullish on East Bay Expressnew
Discussing the future of newspapers in a recent episode of C-Span2's Book TV, Chris Anderson, who also is the author of The Long Tail and Free: The Future of a Radical Price, had good things to say about his local alt-weekly: "The (New York) Times will be fine. They will figure it out," Anderson says. "My local newspaper -- my local, local newspaper -- the East Bay Express. They're already pretty lean and mean, they're probably going to be good about covering my local community even better. The San Francisco Chronicle? I'm not sure it has a future."
CSpan2's Book TV |
07-30-2009 10:54 am |
Industry News
Long Island Press Editor Steps Down
Robbie Woliver tells AAN News he left the Press last month to focus on his own startup company and to devote more time to promoting his recent book Alphabet Kids.
AAN News |
07-07-2009 11:52 am |
Industry News
AAN Convention Gets Rolling
This morning's sessions have begun, and with them, the first full day of AAN's 32nd Annual Convention in Tucson is on its way. We'll have updates here at AAN.org over the next two days; for pictures of the confab, visit our Flickr page. To get short but sweet updates from various Twitterers here in Tucson, search for the hashtag #aan.
AAN News |
06-26-2009 12:56 pm |
Association News
Two Alt-Weeklies Win Eight Green Eyeshade Awards
Village Voice Media's two Florida newspapers fared well in this year's Green Eyeshade Awards, which recognize journalistic excellence in 11 Southern states. Miami New Times won five awards, including first-place finishes in four categories: Coverage of Politics, Crticism, Public Affairs Reporting and Public Service. Sister paper New Times Broward-Palm Beach took home three awards, winning first-place accolades for Non-Deadline Reporting and Sports Commentary. Started by the Atlanta Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the contest is now administered by regional directors for the Society.
AAN News |
06-25-2009 9:57 am |
Honors & Achievements
Lightning Strikes Fast Forward Weekly Office
The CBC reports that an afternoon thunderstorm yesterday "brought almost 500 lightning strikes to Calgary," and Fast Forward Weekly publisher Ian Chiclo says one of them hit his paper's office. "Publisher's computer fried, bits of wall land beside his chair," Chiclo wrote in an email to AAN News yesterday. Reached this morning, he tells us that the office is functioning again, but "limping," with only three computers having access to the internet and the paper's servers. "We think some of the wires are fried," he says.
AAN News |
06-17-2009 12:23 pm |
Industry News
Bill Clinton's 2006 Convention Speech Featured in New Documentary
The former president's keynote remarks on running out of oil and our national energy strategy make an appearance in the new feature-length documentary Sprawling From Grace. The film, which was released on DVD last month, examines the transportation infrastructure and urban planning choices that have led to the current state of suburban sprawl and looks at possible ways forward. The film also features interviews with Michael Dukakis, Denver mayor John Hickenlooper and planning and environmental experts.
AAN News |
05-28-2009 9:28 am |
Association News
As Fire Blazes, Santa Barbara Independent Reports -- Often
Independent senior editor Matt Kettmann tells us via email that the paper has published about 50 stories since the Jesusita wildfire started on Tuesday afternoon at www.independent.com/jesusita. The paper has been doing up-to-the-minute coverage with a staff of about a dozen -- on top of putting out a print edition this week as well. Kettmann says its an example of "how weeklies can handle pretty important and heavy loads."
AAN News |
05-08-2009 3:48 pm |
Industry News
AAN Members Across the Country Unveil Major Changes
- The Mountain Xpress is ending its 14-year run as a print publication today, "suspending its regular online news reports and converting its entire news operation to Twitter dispatches from staff and trusted community journalists."
- The San Francisco Bay Guardian has settled its lawsuit with Village Voice Media, agreeing to drop its legal action and "shut the fuck up" about PG&E, sunshine, media concentration, rent control, and over-development.
- Publisher Sally Freeman has sold the Boise Weekly to N-Corp-Al, which quickly shut the alt-weekly down and relaunched it as the Treasure Valley Weekly Post.
- The Washington City Paper has relaunched as the Huffington City Paper.
- Salt Lake City Weekly announced it has purchased SLUG magazine and will bring new features like "Cute Baby of the Month" and "Those Wacky Pets" to the long-running local underground-music magazine.
- Athens, Ga., alt-weekly Flagpole has relaunched as "a celebrity 'zine about fun and style, now to be known as Starpole."
- The East Bay Express is changing editorial course, introducing new procedures like "user-generated copyediting" and "reader-assigned stories."
AAN News |
04-01-2009 12:22 pm |
Industry News
Another AAN Diversity-Program Alum Pens Cover Story
Since we made note last week of Academy for Alternative Journalism graduate Ling Ma's recent Chicago Reader cover story, we'd be remiss not to mention that fellow class of 2008 alum Rich Knight also had a cover story in the Reader recently. Knight's Jan. 8 piece profiled Chicago's Michael "Frosti" Zernow, who some speculate could become the first superstar in the emerging sport of parkour.
AAN News |
02-18-2009 2:00 pm |
Honors & Achievements
AAN Diversity-Program Alum Pens Cover Story
Ling Ma, a 2008 graduate of the Academy for Alternative Journalism, wrote this week's Chicago Reader cover story about the city's Museum of Holography and a controversial bank loan that may spell the museum's demise. The yearly academy trains young journalists in long-form feature writing with the aim of recruiting them into the alternative press. MORE: Read Ma's blog about reporting the story here.
AAN News |
02-12-2009 10:33 am |
Honors & Achievements
Washington City Paper Capitalizes on Inauguration Fever
Washington's only alt-weekly is putting on a full-court press as the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama draws closer. The City Paper released a 120-page special inauguration issue this week that also featured "The Obama Reader," a 16-page insert from sister paper the Chicago Reader, which has been covering Obama since 1995. (The insert was also published in the Windy City.) Publisher Amy Austin says City Paper will be doing extensive online reporting over the next several days on its inauguration aggregation page. AAN members who want a web icon to link to the ongoing inaugural coverage should email Austin at aaustin (at) washingtoncitypaper.com.
(FULL STORY)
AAN News |
01-16-2009 12:08 pm |
Industry News
