AAN News
Washington City Paper Nixes Local Arts Column, Launches Sex Blognew
Washington City Paper |
09-12-2008 11:20 am |
Industry News
Arianna Huffington: 'I Love What Alternative Newsweeklies are Doing'new
Santa Fe Reporter |
09-12-2008 11:18 am |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Management
Alt-Weekly Reports U.S. Senator's Company Hires Illegal Immigrantsnew
Willamette Week's cover story this week reports that Republican U.S. Senator Gordon Smith's frozen food processing company employs undocumented immigrants, which is a violation of federal law. The Oregonian reports that Smith has said that he has told his firm, Smith Frozen Foods, to "go the extra mile" in ensuring that its work force is legal, and he reacted harshly to WW's piece yesterday. "It is wholly compromised of unsubstantiated and ridiculous allegations from a liberal tabloid whose purpose is to advance a left-wing agenda rather than the truth," Smith said in a statement. But WW editor Mark Zusman tells Politicker OR that no such agenda exists. "There is no purpose other than to seek to tell the truth about an important story," he says. "It's not unusual for a food processing plant to hire illegal immigrants as workers. But this is unusual because Smith is a United States senator." The WW story didn't offer definitive proof, but cited several workers who said illegal immigrants worked there. "We would not have published this story had we not been comfortable with the underlying issue -- that Smith had illegal workers," Zusman says.
The Oregonian | Politicker OR |
09-11-2008 12:10 pm |
Industry News
Esquire Unveils Cover with Electronic Inknew
A 10-square-inch display on the cover of Esquire's October 2008 issue flashes the theme "The 21st Century Begins Now" with a collage of illuminated images, powered by electronic ink. The E-ink technology (the same that is found in Amazon's Kindle, for example) is also used on the inside cover for a Ford advertisement. Esquire editor-in-chief David Granger thinks e-paper is what will bring print into the 21st century, as it incorporates digital technology without making the print product unrecognizable. "It preserves that experience but then it adds a little something else." In other E-ink news, the New York Times reported this week that the company Plastic Logic is introducing its version of an electronic newspaper reader: a lightweight plastic screen that mimics the look -- but not the feel -- of a printed newspaper.
The Associated Press via USA Today |
09-11-2008 10:23 am |
Industry News
The Chico Beat Ceases Publicationnew
The Beat, a tabloid-style weekly launched by former News & Review editors Tom Gascoyne and Josh Indar in August 2006, announced last week that it was shutting down. "The paper tried to fill a niche to the political left of the [Chico News & Review] but never caught on with advertisers," the News & Review reports.
Chico News & Review |
09-11-2008 8:43 am |
Industry News
The Stranger Announces 2008 Genius Award Recipientsnew
The Stranger |
09-11-2008 10:05 am |
Industry News
Study: Mobile Users Are Open to Retail Offersnew
Online Media Daily |
09-11-2008 8:49 am |
Industry News
The North Coast Journal Trims Paper Sizenew
The Humboldt Herald |
09-11-2008 8:48 am |
Industry News
Study: Mobile Advertising is Growing, but Facing Hurdlesnew
The number of U.S. mobile subscribers who recall seeing ads on their phones was up 81 percent from last year, to 77 million people, according to a new study by Nielsen Mobile. However, the report notes that mobile advertising continues to lag behind mobile media usage. For example, 63 percent of mobile ad viewers see ads just once a month or less, while less than two-thirds of page views of top mobile sites carry advertising (half of that is taken up by unpaid house ads). Nielsen points to three factors holding back mobile advertising: Advertisers and agencies are not yet fully aware of the size of mobile content audiences; the complexity of the mobile ecosystem intimidates media buyers; and a lack of trust in the medium because of survey results showing that consumers are not receptive to mobile advertising.
Online Media Daily |
09-10-2008 2:49 pm |
Industry News
Google Creating Online Archives for Newspapersnew
Online Media Daily |
09-10-2008 12:00 pm |
Industry News
Study: Marketers Taking Cautious Approach With Online Medianew
Online Media Daily |
09-10-2008 8:25 am |
Industry News
Critic Pans Alt-Weekly Convention Coverage; Alts Fight Backnew
Columbia Journalism Review assistant editor Jane Kim claims in a blog post that "one thing that was sorely lacking from the past two weeks of convention spotlighting was good alt weekly coverage." She then uses a couple of blog features from convention host-city papers Westword and City Pages to prove the "sad results" of "consolidation of the alt weeklies under VVM." In the comments section, Westword editor Patricia Calhoun argues that staff cartoonist Kenny Be, whose "Delegating Denver" series provided grist for Kim's critique, is "the town's best political columnist," adding that "to quote lines without the context of the artwork is hardly fair" when criticizing a cartoon. AAN executive director Richard Karpel, meanwhile, points out that both papers broke significant convention-related news prior to the conventions, and that several dozen other alt-weeklies had folks on the ground during the confabs. "It seems clear from the tone of this piece that Kim went in with a set of preconceived ideas -- the all-too-easy meme that corporate ownership leads to homogenization -- and wasn't going to let the facts get in her way at 4:42 p.m. on a Friday," City Pages' editor-in-chief Kevin Hoffman adds. Lastly, Village Voice Media executive associate editor Andy Van De Voorde takes Kim to task for "focusing on 'the various shades of Banana Republic grey' worn by the Palins" in her own work during the conventions, while City Pages reporters were arrested, roughed up, and pepper-sprayed as "a direct result of their decision to actually go out and cover news."
Columbia Journalism Review |
09-09-2008 9:10 am |
Industry News
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New Nielsen Tool Combines Mobile, Lifestyle Datanew
Online Media Daily |
09-09-2008 9:14 am |
Industry News
Four New Alt-Weekly-Related Books Hit the Shelves
OC Weekly staff writer and ¡Ask a Mexican! columnist Gustavo Arellano's second book is due to be released on Sept. 16. Orange County: A Personal History is a memoir that examines the history of Orange County as seen through four generations of his family moving back and forth between Mexico and Anaheim. Ed Zotti, longtime editor of the syndicated Straight Dope column, also has a new memoir, which was released this week. His The Barn House: Confessions of an Urban Rehabber is a "memoir about fixing up an old house in the city and pursuing the urban version of the American Dream." Check out an excerpt on the Chicago Reader's site. Another memoir on the horizon is Prince Joe Henry's Princoirs. Henry is the longtime author of the "Ask a Negro Leaguer" column in the Riverfront Times, and the book is an extension of the column. If you're not into memoirs, some of Seattle Weekly cartoonist Scott Meyer's "Basic Instructions" comic strips have been collected in the new Help Is on the Way: A Collection of Basic Instructions, which was released this week.
AAN News |
09-05-2008 8:08 am |
Industry News
City Pages Reporters Maced, Assaulted at RNC Protestnew
Updating their reporting every few minutes by telephone last night, City Pages' Jeff Shaw and Andy Mannix say they were "assaulted by the cops" while trying to cover a RNC protest march. Here's the play-by-play, from Shaw: "The police said we needed to leave, we showed them our press credentials. I said I was a reporter and that it was a public street. An officer struck me and knocked me backwards over a curb. I tried to get up, and three or four officers shoved me to the ground. Andy was maced." Meanwhile, The Stranger's Brendan Kiley was pepper-sprayed earlier this week at the RNC. "I've hurt myself in a lot of different ways," he reports, "but nothing hurts like pepper spray. The pain is fleeting, but it is crippling." Lastly, Sam Stoker, who attended the AAN/Medill Academy for Alternative Journalism this summer, was arrested twice this week while covering RNC protests for In These Times. He's been tapped by LEO Weekly to write a first-person account, which he's agreed to make free to AAN members to reprint. For more on Stoker's piece, contact LEO's Stephen George at sgeorge (at) leoweekly.com.
City Pages |
09-05-2008 7:48 am |
Industry News
