AAN News

Will Newspapers May Hay on 2008 Campaign Ads?new

Editor & Publisher (podcast)  |  11-29-2007  5:34 pm  |  Industry News

Westword Food Writer's Debut Book Due Out Next Yearnew

Jason Sheehan's Whiskey Down: A Story of Love, Sex, Death and Kitchens will chronicle his days in kitchens across the country before he started writing about food rather than making it six years ago, the Rocky Mountain News reports. The manuscript was sold at auction to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an undisclosed amount. "I did really OK; I was very pleased," he says. "I'm one of those writers that hates all of my own stuff, but I really sort of like this book. I liked the chance of hanging out with the younger me again. Also, it's a fantastic book, and everybody should buy 10 or 12 copies."
The Rocky Mountain News  |  11-28-2007  8:32 am  |  Industry News

R.J. Reynolds to Stop Print Ads Next Yearnew

AP via Editor & Publisher  |  11-28-2007  5:15 pm  |  Industry News

Metro Spirit's New Publisher Adjusts to Life at an Alt-Weeklynew

Bryan Osborn, who was named publisher of the Augusta, Ga., paper earlier this month, has spent 15 years working in various managerial roles for daily papers, but he always had his eye on the alt-universe. "I kind of had a jealousy streak and always thought, 'That would be so cool if I did that,'" he says. He tells reporter Angel Cleary about his first "corporate" meetings at Portico Publications, which owns Metro Spirit as well as AAN members C-Ville Weekly and Columbia Free Times. "It was just such a different environment. The discussions were a lot more laid back, as opposed to what would happen in a conference room with a PowerPoint presentation," he says. "When I got out here, when I got to the company, I really felt like I could be myself. I told them, I said, 'I feel like I'm home.'"
Metro Spirit  |  11-27-2007  11:41 am  |  Industry News

Phoenix New Times Case Was Bungled, Judge Saysnew

Judge Anna Baca said yesterday that special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik failed to comply with the law when he issued four subpoenas against the paper, the Arizona Republic reports. Wilenchik neglected to notify the court that any of the four subpoenas had been issued and failed to notify the foreman of the grand-jury about two of them. The judge assessed no sanctions, since the subpoenas have been quashed. New Times founder and Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey, who was arrested with Jim Larkin in the ensuing brouhaha, told reporters that the judge's conclusion validated what New Times has been saying. "It means we are continuing to peel back the layers of a very rotten onion," he said. "As we suspected and as we've written, this was a corrupt process." The paper has hired its own attorney to conduct an investigation into how the case was handled, according to the Republic.
The Arizona Republic  |  11-27-2007  9:14 am  |  Industry News

Dan Savage's Book to be Turned Into a Musicalnew

The Stranger editor and syndicated columnist's story about how he and his boyfriend became parents will get the Broadway treatment, The Village Voice's Michael Musto reports (see Web Extras at end of column). Musto hears that the adaptation of The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant will be directed by Scott Elliott. "That's one more reason to hope the stagehand strike ends," says Musto.
The Village Voice  |  11-27-2007  8:44 am  |  Industry News

Writers' Strike is Gold for Nikke Finke's 'Deadline Hollywood Daily'new

The L.A. Weekly columnist's website "has supplanted traditional media as a primary source of strike news" for many, the New York Times reports. She's even been invoked in picket line chants. "Variety and The Reporter stink. We get our news from Nikki Finke," Ugly Betty writer Bill Wrubel chanted. Since the strike began, Finke has written 142 posts about it, the Times reports. She said she had worked almost around the clock for three weeks, and had fallen asleep at the computer four times. "It's been brutal, but it's also been exhilarating because I love news," she says. "I love it -- a scoop is better than sex." More on Finke from Bloomberg News.
The New York Times  |  11-26-2007  9:54 am  |  Industry News

Philadelphia Weekly's Jewish Hamster Ruffles Some Feathersnew

The cover of the paper's annual gift guide depicts a tan-and-white hamster with a yarmulke and traditional payes, resting a front paw on a dreidel. "A rodent as a symbol for the Jew has a long and notorious history, which becomes apparent even if you do a rudimentary search on the internet," the Jewish Exponent reports. An angry letter to the Weekly reads: "Where did your art director receive her training? At the Heinrich Himmler Academy of Design?" The hamster, ironically enough, is the pet of the Weekly's Liz Spikol, who is Jewish. She tells the Exponent she doesn't find the image offensive, and she doesn't "understand why Orthodoxy would be offensive. I just thought it was a fun image in context of our theme," Spikol says. "I didn't find it problematic," adds an Anti-Defamation League regional director. "We don't find anything objectionable about this."
The Jewish Exponent  |  11-26-2007  8:55 am  |  Industry News

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