AAN News

Convention Website Open for Business

This year's AAN Convention heads back to the East Coast -- Philadelphia, to be exact. The Declaration of IndependAANts, the association's 31st annual convention, will be hosted by the Philadelphia City Paper from June 5-7 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. As always, AAN has lined up a mix of special speakers, brass-tacks programming, and plenty of food, drink and revelry. New Yorker reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh (pictured) is the featured speaker at Friday's First Amendment Lunch, while OC Weekly staffer and "Ask a Mexican!" columnist Gustavo Arellano will host Saturday's AltWeekly Awards Lunch. The convention website -- where you'll find registration information, event schedules, and programming details -- is now live and accepting registrations. Be sure to register before May 2 to get discounted rates. (FULL STORY)
AAN  |  03-27-2008  5:51 pm  |  Association News

Santa Barbara Independent Wins AAN CAN Contest

Doug Elder and Robby Robbins have been named the winners of the AAN CAN European Dream Trip contest, which ended on Friday. As the sales rep and sales manager who generated the most new business between Oct. 11, 2007 and March 21, they will each be awarded a 10-day trip for two that includes round-trip airfare and accommodations for three nights each in London, Paris and Rome. Elder and Robbins ended up with a final tally of $19,928, placing well ahead of the runner-up, John DeMartino of the Independent Weekly, who finished with $2,888.
AAN  |  03-24-2008  11:16 am  |  Association News

AAN Hires New Director of Sales and Marketing

Rick Mundy has joined the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies as director of sales and marketing. He has a more than a decade of experience in newspapers, in sales, marketing, and publishing at various community newspapers, and also as federation manager at the Newspaper Association of America. Mundy's immediate focus will be on revitalizing the AAN CAN classified program. His first day on staff was March 4. (FULL STORY)
AAN  |  03-12-2008  8:56 am  |  Association News

AAN West Post-Conference Survey Results Available

This year's AAN West conference went very well, according to the results of a post-conference survey. A total of 273 people attended the meeting, which was held last month in San Francisco, and 98 percent of the survey respondents agreed that the conference was an overall success. A summary of the survey results has been posted in the Resource Library.
AAN  |  02-26-2008  12:51 pm  |  Association News

AAN CAN Contest Extended

The contest deadline has been extended until Friday, March 21, so AAN CAN sales reps and their managers still have an opportunity to win two 10-day trips for two that include round-trip airfare and accommodations for three nights each in London, Paris and Rome. Read here for more details about the contest, including the current list of leaders. (FULL STORY)
AAN Staff  |  02-22-2008  12:30 pm  |  Association News

Twelve Newspapers Apply for AAN Membership

This year's crop of applying newspapers hail from 10 U.S. states and one Canadian province, and seven of them have previously applied for membership. AAN's Membership Committee will review the papers over the next several months and will discuss their findings when the committee meets in Washington, D.C. on May 3. The committee will then issue its recommendations regarding each application prior to the Annual Meeting, which will take place in Philadelphia on June 7, the last day of the annual AAN convention. The 12 applying papers must be approved by two-thirds of the members voting at the meeting in order to join AAN. In addition, as we reported in December, the status of five current member papers will be reviewed this year. (FULL STORY)
AAN  |  02-21-2008  12:45 pm  |  Association News

Web Conference Presentations Available in Resource Librarynew

Powerpoint presentations and audio recordings of many of the sessions held at the 2008 AAN Web Publishing Conference earlier this month were posted last week on AAN.org. (AAN members must be logged into the website for access to the files.) A summary of the results of the post-conference survey has also been posted in the Resource Library.
AAN  |  02-18-2008  2:58 pm  |  Association News

AAN Hires a New Sales Assistant

Stephanie Roswell has joined the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies as the new sales assistant. Roswell, who started work at AAN on Jan. 28, will assist with the AAN CAN program and handle other administrative tasks as well. (FULL STORY)
AAN  |  02-13-2008  10:44 am  |  Association News

Medill Survives Wave of AltWeekly Awards Entries

In its first year administering AAN's editorial contest, Northwestern University's journalism school processed 1,404 entries, a slight decline from last year's total of 1,490. The decline is probably due to rule changes that resulted in the elimination of two categories and a decrease in the number of entries allowed in other categories. Member participation continues to hover around the 100-mark, with 97 newspapers and seven independent cartoonists submitting work. Finalists will be announced on AAN.org in May.
AAN  |  02-12-2008  1:37 pm  |  Association News

Large Crowds Flock to San Francisco for AAN Conferences

More than 190 people attended the Web Publishing Conference and 288 attended AAN West last week as AAN members descended on the Hotel Kabuki and the First Unitarian Church in San Francisco for several days of education, networking and fun. Post-conference surveys for both events will be circulated later this week. In addition, Powerpoint presentations featured at the conferences will soon be uploaded to the AAN Resource Library.
AAN Staff  |  02-05-2008  6:03 pm  |  Association News

Conference Attendance Exceeds Expectations

Registration totals for AAN West and the Web Publishing Conference, which will be held next week in San Francisco, have far surpassed AAN projections. At 275 registrants, attendance at AAN West is already 50 percent higher than last year and the most it's been since 2003. And the Web Publishing Conference current total of 170 registrants is more than 40 percent above the final numbers from October 2006, the date of the first AAN web conference in San Francisco. There's still room for more if you would like to register. Although our room block at the Hotel Kabuki is already filled, they have a limited number of rooms available at prices that exceed the AAN group rate. Another option: The Kabuki has a sister property about two blocks away, Hotel Tomo, with lower online rates.
AAN  |  01-23-2008  11:44 am  |  Association News

AltWeekly Award Deadline Approaches

Members have just over a week to enter the 2008 contest. Entries must be registered through the contest website by midnight EST on Fri., Jan. 25. Payments and hard copies of entries should be sent to Charles Whitaker, Northwestern University Fisk Hall,1845 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208. Hard copies must be received at Northwestern by 5 p.m. on Mon., Jan. 28. For more information, contact contests (at) aan.org.
AAN  |  01-17-2008  9:57 am  |  Association News

Web Publishing Conference Early Registration Deadline Approaching

The early deadline is this Friday, Jan. 11; registration rates will increase by $50 the following day. The conference is slated for Jan. 30-Feb. 1 at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco, and will feature programming on topics ranging from online metrics to social networking. In addition, two separate open discussions, one for editors and the other for web-tech personnel, will be added to the program next week after AAN conducts a survey of registrants to determine when to schedule them. You can register online by clicking here.
AAN  |  01-10-2008  12:45 pm  |  Association News

Two Veteran Staffers to Leave AAN

AAN director of sales and marketing Roxanne Cooper and her assistant, Tiffany Kildale, resigned last week after accepting new positions with different employers. Cooper will be leaving AAN in February to take over as associate publisher of the Philadelphia City Paper, and Kildale departs next month to assume the position of meeting coordinator at the Chemical Producers & Distributors Association in Washington, D.C. (FULL STORY)
AAN  |  12-17-2007  5:28 pm  |  Association News

Membership of Five Papers Up for Review in 2008

Due to a 2004 change in the association's bylaws, five papers that have taken on new majority owners in the past two years will have their AAN membership reviewed in 2008. The Membership Committee will evaluate The Other Paper, Boston's Weekly Dig, East Bay Express, Metro Pulse, and Cityview, and will issue a report to members a week before the 2007 annual convention. To retain their membership, each paper must be affirmed by at least one-third of the members voting at the annual meeting in Philadelphia, which is tentatively scheduled for June 7. (FULL STORY)
AAN  |  12-12-2007  11:46 am  |  Association News

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