AAN News
AAN’S Smallest Paper Publishes in Rock 'n' Roll Time
Brad Nelson, the 33-year-old founder,
editor and publisher of Duluth, Minnesota’s
Ripsaw News, moonlights as the drummer
for the blues-rocking Black-Eyed Snakes.
Although he occasionally leaves the paper for weeks
at a time to join the band on tour, Ripsaw has helped
revitalize the city’s small indie scene and raised
its political awareness.
(FULL STORY)
Whitney Joiner |
10-30-2003 4:32 pm |
Industry News
Gannett's CiN Weekly Debutsnew
The launch of the Cincinnati Enquirer's free
weekly is the news hook around which the Wall Street
Journal wraps its look at the daily newspaper
industry's efforts "to hook the MTV
generation on newspapers."
WSJ reports that in a recent conference call, the
Tribune Co.'s CFO said that its RedEye has
attracted about 250 new advertising clients that
haven't previously advertised in the Chicago
Tribune.
Wall Street Journal |
10-30-2003 12:37 pm |
Industry News
Veteran Daily Journalist Expresses Preference for Alt-Weekliesnew
After 35 years as a reporter and editor for the
Providence Journal, Brian C. Jones
(pictured) left his well-paying job to become a poorly
remunerated "contributing writer" at the
Providence Phoenix. Jones says he made
the move because the Phoenix covers
important stories that the daily ignores,
and it provides reporters with the freedom to
produce great journalism: "The alternative
papers promise their readers that they will have the
smarts, the courage, and the curiosity to look into
stories not just because they are ignored by the
mainstream papers and the other Big Media, but
because they really need telling."
Providence Phoenix |
10-24-2003 1:14 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial
Gannett to Launch New Louisville Weekly Dec. 3new
Although Velocity is aimed at young
adults, it is "not being positioned as a direct
competitor" to the 13-year-old AAN-member
Louisville Eccentric Observer, claims
Ed Manassah, publisher of the local
Gannett daily responsible for the new paper.
Nevertheless, Manassah sends a shot across
LEO's bow when he claims the young-adult
"marketplace" is "not being serviced." The new
publication's name "is a play off the word
`city,' but then there's also the connection to a faster
pace and speed," the paper's new editor explains
helpfully.
The Courier-Journal |
10-20-2003 12:19 pm |
Industry News
Dan Savage: "I want The Stranger to be conflicted and divided"new
In an interview with mediabistro.com, the editor/sex
columnist describes his contrarian
philosophy and his paper's brand of journalism
("The Stranger does advocacy journalism, and for the
politicians we like we stump like hell for them");
opines on what
separates good alt-weeklies from bad ("They
have a really great sense of play") and names the
ones he likes; and defines the
daily-newspaper problem in a nutshell: "(I)f
you don't have anything in your paper that's going
to upset a five-year-old then 35-year-olds are going
to look elsewhere for the kind of writing
that appeals to them and speaks to them."
mediabistro.com |
10-17-2003 1:35 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Dan Savage
Gannett Hiring Staff For New Weekliesnew
The media conglomerate's corporate Web site
is advertising jobs for "soon-to-be launched
weekly" newspapers in Indianapolis, where its INtake
is set to appear on Dec. 11; Cincinnati; Louisville,
Ky.; and Palm Springs, Calif., according to E&P's
Lucia Moses. Cincinnati CityBeat Editor and Co-
Publisher John Fox tells E&P that he's not
overly concerned with the new competition. "We've
been around for nine years," he said. "We have
numbers, we have relationships. I think we're
going to be fine."
Editor & Publisher |
10-14-2003 12:52 pm |
Industry News
Free Dailies Face Numerous Hurdles, Says NY Timesnew
Seeking to "hook young people on the
newspaper habit, with the hope that they
might
eventually graduate to more substantive,
established
fare," the Tribune Company's amNew York
debuted in Manhattan on Friday. Free dailies like
amNew York face a number of daunting
challenges, says Jacques Steinberg, like
distribution issues, lack of
profitability and cannibalization of existing
dailies in
the same market. "But perhaps the biggest
uncertainty surrounding such publications is how
much attention busy young people will
pay
to newspapers whose short articles ... are in many
instances supplied by news agencies like The
Associated Press," notes Steinberg.
The New York Times |
10-13-2003 12:15 pm |
Industry News
Local Officials Hit Georgia Straight $1 Million Finenew
It's déjà vu all over again in Vancouver,
where the venerable alt-weekly is under attack from
B.C. Liberal ministers. In what Publisher & Editor
Dan McLeod calls "the biggest threat in its
36-year history," the Straight has been stripped of
its status as a newspaper under provincial
sales-tax legislation and assessed fines and
penalties that will total more than one million dollars
by year's end. McLeod, whose paper was "prosecuted
frequently under a wide assortment of trumped-
up charges" in its early years, calls the new
attack "a politically motivated attempt by the
government to silence one of its harshest
critics."
The Georgia Straight |
10-09-2003 1:09 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, The Georgia Straight
New Gannett Weekly to Debut in Cincinnati
In a message originally sent to an AAN
listserv, Cincinnati CityBeat Editor and Co-Publisher
John
Fox tells
AAN
News that a kickoff party for the Cincinnati Enquirer's
"faux alt weekly" was held last week. The new paper,
which hits the streets Oct. 29, has been
christened Cin. Fox speculates about the
meaning of "Cin" and says a 64-page, four-color
prototype, "Looks a lot like Thrive in Boise,
where the
Enquirer's new publisher came from -- similar layout
and flow, with 10 pages of daily classifieds in the
back. Not a single story jumps."
(FULL STORY)
John Fox |
10-07-2003 1:06 pm |
Industry News
Newspaper Marketing Report Tells Dailies to Focus on Nichesnew
"Commuter papers have been shown to be
read by huge numbers of professionals and attract
lucrative advertising, while paid dailies face
limited growth prospects and have all but
lost the ability to charge a premium for home
delivery," says a new report from the International
Newspaper Marketing Association, according to
Editor & Publisher (paraphrasing from the report).
E&P also talks to a consultant who says
he's "been told of (free commuter dailies) being
planned in three cities."
Editor & Publisher |
10-02-2003 1:10 pm |
Industry News
Regular Column in The Stranger Being Made Into Movienew
Zimbabwe-born Charles Mudede has been
writing the unique "Police Beat" for five years.
According to The Seattle Times, Mudede "visits
police stations once a week, checks the log, and,
after talking with the officers involved, incorporates
whatever he finds most interesting into his column."
Director Robinson Devor says his love for
Seattle and Mudede's "fantastic" journalism
convinced him to make the low-budget
independent film: 'Police Beat' particularly
caught my eye because it has a poetic tone
to crime that other crime logs in other papers do
not."
The Seattle Times |
09-29-2003 12:58 am |
Industry News
Metro Silicon Valley Launches PDF Download Edition
09-29-2003 4:43 pm |
Press Releases
Medill Workshop Generates Heat, Inspires and Challenges
AAN Staff |
09-25-2003 5:32 pm |
Association News
New Times Dominates NABJ Awardsnew
Newspapers in the Phoenix-based alt-weekly chain
picked up seven of the 11 awards handed
out last month in the under 150,000 circulation
category of the National Association of Black
Journalists' annual contest. Dallas Observer's Jim
Schutze and Julie Lyons, Cleveland
Scene's Thomas Francis and Riverfront
Times' Jeannette Batz all were named
first-place winners.
National Association of Black Journalists |
09-24-2003 1:05 pm |
Industry News
RedEye Hasn't Hurt Reader's Existing Advertisingnew
So says Chicago Reader Publisher and COO
Jane
Levine (pictured), who admits that Tribune
Publishing's new youth-oriented daily tabloid has
made it more
difficult to reach Tribune clients who don't
advertise
in the Reader. "It's just easier for them and
way
cheaper" to add RedEye to their Tribune
media
spend, Levine tells Media Daily News. "These
papers
are going after, and I don't think very successfully,
an age," Levine says. "They want 18 to 34, period,
young for young's sake. What the reader of our
paper
is and always has been is more of
psychographic
and a lifestyle."
MediaPost's Media Daily News |
09-17-2003 4:14 pm |
Industry News
