AAN News
LEO Names New Editor and Sales Manager
The Louisville Eccentric Observer, which was acquired last month by Nashville-based SouthComm Communications, has named Stephen George as editor and Tammy Norkiewicz as sales manager, according to a press release. George, who previously served as managing editor, has been with LEO since January 2005, and Norkiewicz has been an account executive with the paper since December 2005. LEO has also named former associate editor Sara Havens as the new arts & entertainment editor, and has hired 2008 Academy for Alternative Journalism fellow Phillip Bailey as staff writer. Reached via email, George tells AAN News that Bailey will still participate in the scholarship program this summer; the paper is giving him a leave of absence to do so.
(FULL STORY)
Louisville Eccentric Observer Press Release |
06-02-2008 11:01 am |
Press Releases
Alt-Weeklies Fare Well in South Florida SPJ Awardsnew
Three AAN papers won a total of 12 Sunshine State Awards, given out by the South Florida Pro Chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists. Miami New Times nabbed four awards, including first-place finishes in Serious Feature Reporting, Arts Reporting, and the Gene Miller Award for Investigative Reporting. Creative Loafing (Tampa)'s six total awards including a first-place finish in Election Reporting. New Times Broward-Palm Beach won two awards, including first-place kudos for Non-Deadline Business Reporting.
The Society for Professional Journalists, South Florida Pro Chapter |
06-02-2008 8:50 am |
Honors & Achievements
Boise Weekly Names New Editor
After a year leading the Boise Weekly's editorial team, Shea
Andersen is headed out, "to work at a newspaper that does not feature a
cartoon devoted to making fun of idle chatter overheard in the
offices of Boise," according to a press release. He will be replaced by Rachael Daigle, who has been a staff writer and editor at the Weekly for five years. "Rachael knows what we are about and understands what
needs to be done to move Boise Weekly forward," publisher Sally Freeman
says in a statement. "I am very excited about our future with her leading our
editorial team." The paper also took this opportunity to announce two new hires: Nathaniel
Hoffman as news editor and Tara Morgan as staff writer.
(FULL STORY)
Boise Weekly Press Release |
05-30-2008 11:02 am |
Press Releases
Deadline is Approaching for Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalismnew
American University's School of Communication's J-Lab |
05-30-2008 1:08 pm |
Press Releases
Tags: Editorial, Management
AAN Launches 2008 Convention Community Blog
The convention's still a week away, but today AAN is unveiling this year's community blog, Philadelphia2008.aan.org. This marks the second year AAN is running a community blog for the convention. We'll be using the blog to share updates on the convention as well as recommend places to go in Philly, but the blog is also yours, and we welcome anyone attending the convention to join us and blog -- click here to register.
AAN |
05-29-2008 4:06 pm |
Association News
Basketball Team's Lawyers Want Stranger Columnist Off Witness Listnew
Lawyers for the Seattle SuperSonics' owners don't want Sherman Alexie, the author who also pens the "Sonics Death Watch" column for the Stranger, testifying at an upcoming trial that likely will determine where the team will play next season, the Seattle Times reports. The ownership group wants to pay off the final two years of its lease at Seattle's arena and move the team to Oklahoma City for next season, while the city of Seattle is suing in federal court to force the team to fulfill the lease. "Other than being a season ticket holder, it is unclear what foundation or testimonial knowledge" Alexie would bring to the trial, the owners' lawyers claim in a motion filed Tuesday. "What is clear are his biased, profanity-laden views" about the owners, it continues. The Stranger yesterday posted a profanity-filled fake letter to the judge, which says, among other things, that "it's pig-fuckingly clear that the facts undercut Mr. Taylor's contention that Mr. Alexie is irrelevant to this case."
The Seattle Times |
05-29-2008 3:00 pm |
Industry News
Membership Committee Recommends Two Papers for Admission to AAN
This year the committee recommends two of the 12 applying papers for admission to the association: City Pulse from Lansing, Mich., and Hawaii Island Journal from Hilo, Hawaii. The committee also recommends that the five papers that have changed ownership recently be re-affirmed as members of the organization. Those papers are: Metro Pulse, The Other Paper, Cityview, East Bay Express, and Boston's Weekly Dig. The committee's complete report is available in the Resource Library, along with a document featuring ownership reports on each of the applying papers and the papers up for review. The reports will also be available in printed form during this year's Convention in Philadelphia. Each AAN member paper can vote for or against the acceptance of an applying paper at the association's annual meeting, which will be held on the last day of the Convention, Saturday, June 7.
(FULL STORY)
Erin Sullivan |
05-29-2008 9:34 am |
Association News
Call for Applications: All-Expenses-Paid Seminars in Health Journalism
The Annenberg School for Communication's California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships
(FULL STORY)
USC Annenberg School for Communication Press Release |
05-29-2008 9:40 am |
Press Releases
Tags: Editorial, Management
Hundreds of Salt Lake City Weekly Copies Disappearnew
As many as 1,000 copies of last week's paper were removed from street boxes after an unflattering cover story involving local police officers was published, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. "I do believe they were stolen and, yes, I suspect someone close to the story is behind it," Weekly executive editor John Saltas says. The Tribune notes that this type of thing has happened before: "The alleged theft is reminiscent of an incident in 1997 when then-Salt Lake District Attorney Neal Gunnarson threw a stack of Weekly papers into a trash bin after the paper published an uncomplimentary story about him."
The Salt Lake Tribune |
05-28-2008 9:13 am |
Industry News
AAN Launches AltWeeklies.com 2.0
After months of planning and preparation, the Association of Alternative
Newsweeklies today debuted the second iteration of AltWeeklies.com, the
association's story-sharing and content-portal website. The new site
incorporates many new types of content and organizes it all in a way that
makes it much easier for users to find what they are looking for. Read here to learn more about the changes.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
05-22-2008 5:15 pm |
Association News
LEO Acquired by Ex-Nashville Scene Publisher's Companynew
The Louisville Eccentric Observer was acquired by SouthComm Communications, a company headed by former Scene publisher Chris Ferrell, according to LEO. The change was announced to staff this morning. Pam Brooks will stay on as publisher, but other LEO staffers were not so lucky. Brooks told a local blog that editor Cary Stemle, sales director Kelly Gream, and two other employees weren't offered positions with the new company. SouthComm, which was formed late last year, owns a custom publishing company based in Atlanta, as well as various Nashville websites and magazines.
Louisville Eccentric Observer |
05-22-2008 4:21 pm |
Industry News
L.A. Weekly and Phoenix New Times Win Maggie Awardsnew
The Maggie Awards, presented annually by the Western Publications Association, honor publishing excellence among magazines in the Western U.S. L.A. Weekly was selected as the best tabloid/consumer publication for its Sept. 7 issue, and also prevailed in two other categories: Best Fiction in the Trade & Consumer category for "One Hundred Percent," and Best News Story in the Consumer category, for "The End of Murder." Phoenix New Times won for Best Public Service Series or Article in the Trade & Consumer category for its investigations into Maricopa County's "assault" on the paper.
Western Publications Association |
05-22-2008 9:41 am |
Honors & Achievements
Index Newspapers & DesertNet Unveil New Content Management System
The company that owns The Stranger and Portland Mercury announces the release today of Foundation, "a highly customizable, fully integrated
content-management system for alt-weeklies." The new system, which was developed in partnership with DesertNet, includes dynamic calendars, city guides, user profiles, and extensive editorial tools. "With its customizable layouts and
components, Foundation will reduce alt-weeklies' reliance on
expensive web development," the Index Newspaper press release says.
(FULL STORY)
Index Newspapers Press Release |
05-22-2008 8:35 am |
Press Releases
The Stranger Removes Writer's Stories Over Possible Plagiarismnew
"We recently discovered that an art review by Nate Lippens published in The Stranger in August 2004 bears striking similarities to an art review by John Miller published in ArtForum in the summer of 2002," editor Christopher Frizzelle wrote last week. On advice from the Poynter Institute, the paper decided to take down and reexamine all of Lippens' stories, and will re-post the ones that are OK "as quickly as we can." When contacted by The Stranger by email, Lippens wrote: "I'm, of course, deeply embarrassed by this. I feel terrible." The next day the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported it was "looking at dozens of pieces written by Lippens" after editors discovered similarities between something he wrote for the daily and Art in America magazine. Lippens has also freelanced for Seattle Weekly, which has "found no evidence thus far of any plagiarism" in the handful of pieces he wrote for them, editor Mike Seely tells AAN News in an email.
The Stranger | Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
05-21-2008 2:40 pm |
Industry News
NOW Magazine Confronts Drop in Print Readershipnew
Canada's Print Measurement Bureau recently released numbers showing a 14.2 percent drop in NOW's readership over the past two years, according to the Globe and Mail. The Canadian daily uses the readership drop as a springboard to examine the state of Toronto's alt-weeklies -- NOW and its competitor Eye Weekly, which is in the same ownership group as the daily Toronto Star. "Alt-weeklies are a particular case. Entirely reliant on advertising revenues, their revenue is not augmented by subscriptions or newsstand sales," the Globe and Mail reports. "At the same time, they're threatened by a panoply of other free offerings." NOW publisher Michael Hollett shrugs off the latest numbers, and says the paper's health is strong. "It's just one of many ways of counting," he says. "Our boxes are empty and business is good." Indeed, the Globe and Mail reports that NOW's ad revenue was up in 2007, and Hollett notes that the paper continues to innovate -- and gain readers -- online.
The Globe and Mail |
05-20-2008 11:47 am |
Industry News
