AAN News
Style Weekly Fires Writer Who Used Obscenity in Emailnew
The Richmond alt-weekly has fired staff reporter Chris Dovi after Dovi accidentally sent an email meant for his editor, which referred to a blind motivational speaker a "blind [expletive]," to the speaker's public relations representative. Dovi tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch his language sprang from his frustration with the PR rep's frequent calls and emails about a potential story, but says he's "not making excuses." He adds: "I shouldn't have been flip." Style Weekly editor Jason Roop and publisher Lori Waran, in a joint statement, say Dovi's language "violated the core values" of the paper. "It showed an unacceptable disregard for one of our chief missions at Style: to honor diversity as a company in all of our dealings with the community, and within Style's hallways." MORE: Washington City Paper's Andrew Beaujon says Style "decided to assuage an awkward situation by cutting off a talented reporter at the knees."
Richmond Times-Dispatch |
02-18-2010 3:49 pm |
Industry News
Honolulu Weekly Editor Removes Himself from the Rail Beatnew
In response to some concerns "inside and outside the paper" about Ragnar Carlson's role as the Weekly's editor and his father's role as paid consultant to Parsons Brinckerhoff, Honolulu's prime contractor on the current stage of a massive rail project, Carlson says he's handing off all rail and rail-related stories to managing editor Adrienne LaFrance. "I've removed myself to avoid a conflict of interest, real or perceived, on this issue," Carlson writes, adding that he doesn't think that his father's role has influenced his editing or reporting. "[But] the perception of a conflict is as real a threat to our mission as any potential conflict itself," he writes. "Readers need to trust our coverage implicitly." On his blog, Carlson's father says it is "the right decision."
Honolulu Weekly |
02-18-2010 12:45 pm |
Industry News
SF Weekly Asks Appeals Court to Overturn Bay Guardian Judgmentnew
In an appeal brief filed yesterday, SF Weekly is asking the California courts to overturn the San Francisco Bay Guardian's $21 million judgment in the 2008 predatory-pricing case, marking the final written document that will be entered into the record as part of the Weekly's appeal. The court is now expected to schedule oral arguments in the case, with a final decision coming "anywhere from five to eighteen months," according to the Weekly.
SF Weekly |
02-17-2010 3:53 pm |
Industry News
Musical Theater Version of Dan Savage Book Coming to Broadwaynew
Savage's 2000 book The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant has been turned into a musical by The New Group and will launch on Broadway in April. The Savage character will be played by Christopher Sieber, who has been nominated for Tony Awards for his performances in Monty Python's Spamalot and Shrek The Musical.
BroadwayWorld.com |
02-17-2010 1:10 pm |
Industry News
Call for Applications: Rosalynn Carter Fellowships For Mental Health Journalismnew
The Carter Center |
02-17-2010 3:21 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Management
Creative Loafing Brings on Former Dallas Observer Publishernew
Alison Draper, who was publisher of the Dallas Observer between 2002 and 2006, has been named the new vice president and chief sales officer of Creative Loafing, Inc. She will report to CL CEO Marty Petty, and will be based in the company's Chicago office. "We're all aware of the decline in the influence of daily newspapers and in their circulation and advertising sales," Draper says in a release. "I'm convinced that Creative Loafing's newspapers and websites can attract the readers and serve the advertisers who find daily newspapers irrelevant."
Tampa Bay Business Journal |
02-16-2010 4:46 pm |
Industry News
Santa Barbara Independent Editor Sues Publisher Over Proposed Salenew
Editor-in-chief Marianne Partridge has sued publisher Randy Campbell in Santa Barbara County Superior Court for breach of contract in a legal dispute that Independent reporter Nick Welsh says "could have major ramifications for the ownership structure" of the paper. Partridge, a minority shareholder, claims that Campbell -- who owns 51 percent of the company -- is in violation of contract language that requires him to offer to sell his stock to Partridge or one of the other two minority owners before selling to anyone else. The dispute stems from Campbell's apparent desire to sell his share of the Independent to Valley Printers, which prints the paper and is owned by Southland Publishing, the parent company of four Southern California AAN member papers.
Santa Barbara Independent |
02-16-2010 1:39 pm |
Industry News
Cityview Editor/Publisher Takes Heat for Saying Newspapers Have Become 'More Feminine'
"Newspapers, especially corporate-owned dailies, have become more feminine, and that is quite obvious in the pages of the local Gannett daily," Shane Goodman wrote in his Cityview editor's note last week. "As reporters spend more time writing about the hot colors of throw pillows and less time investigating crime at city hall, it creates opportunities for papers like this one." His comments have drawn a rebuke from the Des Moines Register's Rekha Basu, who says that "the lack of logic, research or intellectual honesty" in Goodman's note "are appalling." She adds: "But even more so are the sexist stereotypes that pour off a few short paragraphs of the city's so-called alternative paper."
AAN News |
02-16-2010 1:22 pm |
Industry News
Santa Fe Reporter is One of the Country's 'Best Venues for Illustration'new
That's Robert Newman's take, as he profiles yet another alt-weekly for the Society of Publication Designers' "Grids" blog. "The Reporter has an editorial budget for an entire issue that is less than what most national magazines pay for a spot illustration," Newman writes, praising cover designer Angela Moore's ability to create "engaging, timely covers, designed to drive circulation and appeal to the Reporter's readership." She says that despite her small budget, artists like to work for the Reporter because she trusts their instincts. "I'm always being told by illustrators how rare it is to work with someone who doesn't over direct, and I think that's why so many work for us even with our small budget," Moore says.
Society of Publication Designers |
02-16-2010 10:48 am |
Industry News
Conason: Alt-Weeklies Often 'Far Ahead' on Investigative Storiesnew
In a short blog post on the new Nation Investigative Fund website, Joe Conason says Paul Knight's 2009 story on problems with the Toyota Prius is just the latest example of alt-weeklies -- "those hippie outposts of the old print media" -- "provid[ing] an important outlet for investigative stories that are far ahead of their mainstream competitors." While Conason is certainly right about alts often getting a head start on big stories like the Prius problems, he is wrong about one thing: The story in question originated in the Houston Press, where Knight is a staff reporter. It was reprinted in the OC Weekly and a few other VVM papers.
The Investigative Fund |
02-12-2010 12:31 pm |
Industry News
San Francisco Bay Guardian Redesigns Websitenew
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
02-12-2010 12:33 pm |
Industry News
Bay Guardian/SF Weekly Case Back in Court Today
A San Francisco judge today heard arguments on whether SF Weekly should be forced to give half of its advertising revenue to the San Francisco Bay Guardian as part of the Guardian's continuing efforts to collect on the 2008 judgment in the predatory pricing suit between the two papers. The judge issued a "late tentative ruling" that suggested he will do just that, and he said he will give the final ruling soon. Meanwhile, the Guardian has asked a judge to add Village Voice Media, LLC and Village Voice Media Holdings, LLC to the companies that make up the Weekly's parent company in the judgment. (When the Guardian's suit was initially filed, the Weekly was still owned by pre-merger New Times.) A hearing on that matter has been set for March 12. The Weekly has said it is waiting to make any payments to the Guardian until it exhausts its appeals. MORE: Seattle Weekly wonders why The Stranger is sending a reporter to San Francisco to cover this, when Stranger editor Dan Savage's sex column runs in many papers that SF Weekly's parent company owns.
AAN News |
02-11-2010 6:31 pm |
Industry News
Texas Observer Undergoes Redesignnew
The Observer recently unveiled a redesign that was overseen by Austin-based Em Dash. "The challenge was to create a template that could be produced by one part-time art director with a $450 art budget per issue," Robert Newman writes. "The result: a sharp, smart, right on, low-budget, high-impact design, perfect for the magazine's mix of muckraking reporting and liberal politics." The Observer has also launched a redesigned website.
Society of Publication Designers |
02-11-2010 10:03 am |
Industry News
How the Long Island Press Took Advantage of Newsday's Paywallnew
While the economic downturn hurt the paper a bit, Press publisher Jed Morey tells CNN Money there were no mass layoffs -- and the paper was back in the black by the end of last year. Morey pegs the Press' success in part to the decision of Long Island's daily paper Newsday to go partly behind a paywall last year. The Press seized the opportunity and began running more general news on the web, to appeal to those who might not pay for Newsday online. Since then, Morey says traffic has gone up 600 percent. "It is not about a newspaper, it is not about the physical product or even the experience. It's about the quality of the journalism," he says. "If you stay true to that, we think that there is several different places you can go with that. The web being one of them."
CNN Money |
02-09-2010 2:21 pm |
Industry News
Weekly Dig Art Director's Book of Comic Strips is Outnew
Longtime Dig art director Tak Toyoshima has put a collection of his "Secret Asian Man" comic strips together in his first book, Secret Asian Man: The Daily Days. The book features every single daily comic strip he produced for over two years of syndication with United Feature Syndicate. "My goal was never to get picked up for syndication in daily papers but when it happened, I took a good look at what was out there and was shocked," he tells former Dig colleague Craig Kapilow. "SAM was touted by United Features as being the first daily syndicated comic strip featuring an Asian-American lead, which was unbelievable and sad at the same time." MORE: Ever wanted to see video of a topless porn starlet setting a book of comics on fire? You're in luck, thanks to the latest "Comic Book Witch Hunt" video from Nick Gazin, in which Ryan Keely sets The Daily Days aflame. (Depending on where you work, this may or may not be NSFW.)
URB Magazine |
02-09-2010 12:53 pm |
Industry News
