AAN News
Web Publishing Conference Program Set
This year's conference will be held Jan. 30 to Feb. 1 in San Francisco, and is
designed for alt-weekly publishers, editors, electronic publishing
personnel, and any other employees with responsibility for their paper's
website. After two "big-picture" presentations by the New York Times' Nick Bilton and Tacoda Systems' Dave
Morgan, the conference will be dedicated to practical, nuts-and-bolts
programming on topics such as user-generated content, online video, blogging, tagging and social bookmarking, search-engine optimization,
web analytics, social networking, legal issues and the mobile internet. For more information, or to register, visit the conference website.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
11-26-2007 12:56 pm |
Association News
Alt-Weekly Reporter Takes Issue With 'Hey, That's Not an Alt-Weekly'new
Dave Maass, currently a staff writer at the Santa Fe Reporter, doesn't think it was fair of AAN executive director Richard Karpel to single out Santa Fe's The Sun News in his inaugural column this week. "I've read the full piece four or five times now, and I can't find a single cogent argument why The Sun can't be an alternative newspaper," Maass writes. "What right does [Karpel] have to censor the words 'alternative' and 'newspaper' from being used, by his own admission, quite properly to describe The Sun? We're all standing up, speaking out, aren't we?" He adds: "Obviously, The Sun News isn't an alt-weekly in the contemporary conventional sense. But surely there's room in the taxonomy for them." More blog response to Karpel's column here, here, and here. UPDATE: Dave Maass has also posted a follow-up.
Maassive.com |
11-16-2007 11:28 am |
Industry News
Willamette Week Publisher: We're Enjoying Great Healthnew
In his annual report to readers, Richard Meeker says that despite "the gloom-and-doom reports" on newspapers across the country, Willamette Week's story in 2007 "is anything but a tale from the crypt." He notes that "this will be the paper's best year ever in display sales," with sales up 7.6 percent over 2006. And although classifieds continue to decline, with sales down about $115,000, total revenue at the paper is expected to be up 4 or 5 percent from last year, with pre-tax profit expected to be about 5 percent. "If [the paper was] owned by a media conglomerate, co-owner Mark Zusman and I would have been relieved of our responsibilities long ago for unsatisfactory financial performance," Meeker writes. "While we certainly could be a little more efficient, we feel it would seriously harm the culture of our operation to try to match national averages calling for profits two to three times greater than ours."
Willamette Week |
11-15-2007 9:08 am |
Industry News
Hey, That's Not an Alt-Weekly!
According to AAN executive director Richard Karpel, reporters often
mistakenly apply the term "alternative newspaper" to the wrong publications.
So in an effort to "make some small contribution to human understanding and
the brand equity of our member papers," he decided to note every time he
sees the term used incorrectly. In this first edition of "Hey,
That's Not an Alt-Weekly!" -- an irregular series devoted to the correct use of
the term "alternative newspaper" and all its variants -- Karpel explains what an alternative newspaper is and why The Sun News in Santa Fe, N.M., doesn't qualify.
(FULL STORY)
AAN News |
11-14-2007 8:07 am |
Industry News
Bay Area Publishers Catch Newspaper Thieves in the Act
Last month, the publishers of OPEN EXCHANGE MAGAZINE, a quarterly directory magazine in the Bay Area, began wondering why many of their news boxes were suspiciously empty. They started staking out locations in the early morning hours, and last week, they caught two people stealing their magazines, along with the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, San Francisco Bay Guardian and others. Since California law makes it a crime to steal more than 25 copies of any free
paper, they filed this report with the Oakland Police Department.
(FULL STORY)
AAN News |
11-13-2007 8:11 am |
Industry News
Former Mountain XPress Staffer Lands at Newly Launched Competitornew
Cecil Bothwell, who was fired from the XPress last month, is now a business partner in and news editor of Asheville City Paper. The paper, which is being started by the independent weekly Columbia City Paper, will be monthly at first and hopes to go bi-weekly by Spring. A press release posted at Bothwell's blog says the City Paper, "targeting an 18-45 liberal demographic, will feature hard-hitting investigative journalism and will cover national politics, local news and music." Managing editor Todd Morehead tells the Ashvegas blog: "We're all super excited and Cecil already has a gutsy investigative piece in the works that he says Mountain Xpress was 'too timid' to publish."
Mountain XPress |
11-12-2007 12:31 pm |
Industry News
AAN Membership Application Process Begins
AAN is now accepting applications for the 2007-08 membership year. Alternative newspapers that are interested in applying for membership in the association can download an application here (PDF file). Applications must be received in the AAN office in Washington, D.C. by Dec. 31 to be eligible. As papers that have run the gauntlet know, the AAN membership process is rigorous. To learn more about how the association determines whether a paper qualifies for membership, we encourage potential applicants to read our membership guidelines -- there is a short version and a long version (Word doc). For questions about the process, papers should contact Debra Silvestrin at 202-289-8484 or debra (at) aan.org.
AAN Staff |
11-08-2007 11:25 am |
Association News
New York Magazine Drops Adult Ads Under Pressure from NOWnew
New York agreed yesterday to stop accepting adult ads after the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) threatened protests outside the magazine's offices, the Associated Press reports. "It's just the right the thing to do," New York spokeswoman Serena Torrey says. "The magazine is really prospering now and it's finally time to get out of a business that we were never comfortable being in." The pressure is part of an orchestrated campaign by NOW, which has been asking other local media to stop taking adult ads. It has won agreements to do so from 14 other publications including Time Out New York and the New York Press, but the Village Voice has resisted the group's efforts, the AP reports.
The Associated Press via The International Herald Tribune |
11-07-2007 11:22 am |
Industry News
Web Revenue Remains Small --But Profit Margins are Swellingnew
Editor & Publisher |
11-07-2007 5:40 pm |
Industry News
Judge Rules Bay Guardian's Suit Against SF Weekly Can Go to Trial
After hearing arguments on SF Weekly's three motions for summary judgment, Superior Court Judge Richard A. Kramer ruled Thursday that the San Francisco Bay Guardian's predatory pricing lawsuit against the Weekly and Village Voice Media can go to trial. The jury trial is now scheduled to begin in January. Read more from the Weekly and the Bay Guardian.
San Francisco Bay Guardian | SF Weekly |
10-29-2007 10:24 am |
Industry News
Orlando Weekly Drops Adult Ads This Week; Cops Release Transcriptnew
"Adult services will not be running this week because Orlando Weekly cannot ensure that doing so will not result in additional arrests of its employees by local police," reads the page in the alt-weekly where such ads would ordinarily appear. Instead, the paper printed the text of the First Amendment. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation has released a transcript from the investigation that led to last week's arrests, but the Weekly's attorney cautions against reading too much into it. "We should not rush to judgment based on the release of a transcript from a single conversation from a two-year investigation," Bill Schaefer tells Local 6 TV. "We should examine the propriety of the release of potential evidence prior to judicial proceedings. It may deny the defendants a fair and impartial trial."
News 13 Central Florida | WFTV | Local 6 TV |
10-25-2007 11:43 am |
Industry News
Alt-Weeklies Protest Arizona Officials' Outrageous Abuse of Power
To show solidarity with Phoenix New Times, members of AAN are providing links on their websites that direct their readers to the many
places on the internet where the home address of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is listed. Last week, New Times disclosed that its executives, writers, and even its readers were the target of a sweeping grand jury probe relating to the paper's publishing the sheriff's home address online; this disclosure led to the paper's co-founders being arrested. One day later, all charges against New Times were dropped. "Our association and its members won't tolerate this
sort of attack on the right of a member paper to publish information that is
and ought to be public record," says Tim Redmond, AAN First Amendment Chair Tim Redmond and executive editor of the San
Francisco Bay Guardian.
(FULL STORY)
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Press Release |
10-23-2007 11:10 am |
Press Releases
Orlando Weekly Hits Back on Prostitution Probenew
The first thing you notice when you land on Orlando Weekly's home page these days is an audio stream of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" -- a message the paper is clearly taking to heart. In a story nearing 5,000 words published late yesterday, the alt-weekly comes out swinging at the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI), which arrested three of its employees on Friday on charges of deriving proceeds from prostitution and aiding and abetting prostitution. (The MBI also got a grand jury indictment for criminal racketeering against the paper.) The Weekly says that the arrests were simply retaliation for publishing critical stories about the agency, and as proof points to a host of other publications that carry similar ads, yet have not been targeted by the MBI. "The MBI is an inept, inefficient police organization, answerable to no one," the paper writes. "And if you dare confront the agency on their appalling record, they will try to put you out of business."
Orlando Weekly |
10-23-2007 8:08 am |
Industry News
Online Ad Growth Being Stunted by Conflicting Measurementsnew
Online advertising is expected to generate more than $20 billion in revenue this year, but questions remains about how much clashing traffic figures will hold the market back, the New York Times reports. Visitor measurements being taken by large online publishers are coming in much higher than the numbers provided by third-party firms like ComScore and Nielsen/NetRatings. The discrepancies are caused by a number of factors, including the use of raw server data (by publishers) vs. extrapolating audience figures based on panel samplings (by third parties). In addition, while the "impression" has largely become the accepted metric used to measure an online audience -- and set ad rates -- each company uses a different methodology to calculate that number, according to the Times. "It's hugely frustrating," the president for media at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia says about the clashing numbers. "It's one of the barriers preventing us from really moving forward."
The New York Times |
10-22-2007 10:56 am |
Industry News
AAN Introduces HTML Newsletters
If you thought your daily AAN.org newsletter looked a little different this morning, you were right. AAN has transitioned the daily and weekly AAN.org emails from staid plain-text to rich HTML. Newsletters for AltWeeklies.com will soon make the same switch, once the site redesign is complete. To sign up for daily or weekly AAN newsletters or to update your preferences, click here (if you are an AAN member) or click here (if you aren't an AAN member).
AAN Staff |
10-18-2007 10:12 am |
Association News
