AAN News
The Independent Weekly Celebrates 25th Anniversarynew
The Independent Weekly |
04-11-2008 1:01 pm |
Honors & Achievements
AAN Promotes Regional Staff Training Fund
At the annual meeting in Portland last year, AAN members approved a budget that eliminated funding for the regional staff training conferences that had been held annually in San Francisco and Washington D.C., AAN Board president Stephen Leon explains in a memo mailed to publishers this week (and available in the Resource Library). In lieu of the conferences, the Board allocated a sum of money to "regional staff training," without specifying dates or locations. The idea was that individual publishers, or small groups of publishers, could submit conference proposals to AAN to apply for "grant" money from the budget. This year's AAN West conference was the first conference organized under the program; in a document that was attached to Leon's memo, the organizers share their "formula for success."
AAN |
04-10-2008 2:11 pm |
Association News
Fallout from Michael Lacey's Comments Continuesnew
The Village Voice Media executive editor's Friday night utterance of the "n-word" continues to be discussed in media circles and on the internet. Maricopa County attorney Andrew Thomas, who may be sued by Phoenix New Times soon, criticized Lacey's comments at a press conference on Tuesday, saying "this should be the Don Imus moment for
Arizona's media," KTVK-TV reports. KTVK-TV also has the full video of the
acceptance speech in which the offending comment was made. And Philadelphia City Paper publisher Paul Curci is weighing in as well, calling Lacey's comments "vicious and hateful" in an incensed letter to AAN News.
KTVK-TV |
04-10-2008 1:33 pm |
Industry News
Recent L.A. Weekly Cover Story to be Feature Filmnew
Universal Pictures has acquired Sascha Rothchild's "How to Get Divorced by 30" to form the basis of a romantic comedy, Variety reports. Marc Platt will produce the picture with Dana Fox, writer of the upcoming What Happens in Vegas... and 2005's The Wedding Date.
Variety |
04-10-2008 9:10 am |
Industry News
Letter to the Editor RE: Michael Lacey's Comments
Paul Curci |
04-10-2008 1:30 pm |
Letters to the Editor
AAN Board Member Carol Flagg to Step Down
The Austin Chronicle's advertising director -- and AAN Retail Advertising
Committee chair -- says she's leaving the paper in the first week of July.
Flagg plans to move back home to Phoenix to start a new company that
provides consulting services. She will step down from her position on the AAN Board of Directors following
the board's meeting in June in Philadelphia. Her departure means someone will be
elected at the convention to serve the one year remaining in her term as retail ad chair.
(FULL STORY)
AAN News |
04-08-2008 4:20 pm |
Association News
Four Alt-Weeklies Nab New York Press Association Awardsnew
AAN members were well-represented when the winners of the association's 2007 Better Newspaper Contest were announced this weekend. Syracuse New Times took home a total of nine awards, including first-place finishes in Best Advertising Campaign, Best House Ad/Ad Campaign, Graphic Illustration, Sports Feature, and Sports Feature Photo. Metroland won a total of seven awards, and staff writer David King was named 2007 Writer of the Year. Judges called King "a powerful writer, a master storyteller, and a thorough researcher whose convincing style grabs the reader and holds on tight -- navigating difficult subject matter, taking us to places we've never been, enabling us to understand things we never could." The New York Press came away with six awards, including first-place finishes in Best Front Page and Feature Story. The Ithaca Times took home four awards.
New York Press Association (pdf) |
04-08-2008 9:09 am |
Honors & Achievements
Syracuse New Times is History April 9, 2008
Syracuse New Times Press Release |
04-08-2008 4:05 pm |
Press Releases
Amsterdam Weekly Offered For Sale ... To Its Readers
In order to keep the paper alive and free, the Weekly has decided to sell individual blocks of editorial content to readers for the next three weeks. Each page will be divided into 204 blocks and each block costs five euros (about $8). "The message to readers is that we are asking for their support during this
transition," says publisher Todd Savage. Editor Steve Korver explains how it will work: "Fans of our photography page can sponsor that page, or those
who love our film reviews can show their preferences by sponsoring blocks on
those pages," he says. "We hope to sell out the paper, but we are also
curious to see how the pages will look with missing blocks on the page. It
could be quite arty."
(FULL STORY)
Amsterdam Weekly Press Release |
03-28-2008 1:03 pm |
Press Releases
Convention Website Open for Business
This year's AAN Convention heads back to the East Coast --
Philadelphia, to be exact. The Declaration of IndependAANts, the
association's 31st annual convention, will be hosted by the
Philadelphia City Paper from June 5-7 at the Pennsylvania Convention
Center. As always, AAN has lined up a mix of special speakers,
brass-tacks programming, and plenty of food, drink and revelry. New
Yorker reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh (pictured) is the
featured speaker at Friday's First Amendment Lunch, while OC Weekly
staffer and "Ask a Mexican!" columnist Gustavo Arellano will host
Saturday's AltWeekly Awards Lunch. The convention website -- where
you'll find registration information, event schedules, and programming
details -- is now live and accepting registrations. Be sure to register
before May 2 to get discounted rates.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
03-27-2008 5:51 pm |
Association News
Report: More Wealthy Consumers Using Online Social Networksnew
Center for Media Research |
03-26-2008 8:59 am |
Industry News
Study: Younger Online News Consumers Are Not Newspaper Readersnew
Center for Media Research |
03-20-2008 8:49 am |
Industry News
State of the News Media: Mixed Forecast for Alt-Weekliesnew
The annual report issued by the Project for Excellence in Journalism finds the alt-weekly industry still struggling with an aging readership, stalled circulation, and increased competition, especially online. However, the report notes that the overall reader migration from print to web might eventually benefit alt-weeklies, since online is "a platform well suited for a sector that specializes in niche, intensely local content." Also noted: small and mid-market papers are seeing the most growth in revenue; and alt-weekly readers are "perfect" media users, with "a tendency to be avid consumers of other media, more so than the public overall."
The Project for Excellence in Journalism |
03-18-2008 11:50 am |
Industry News
How to Overcome the Stigma of In-Text Adsnew
MediaPost's Kory Kredit recently did an informal survey to gauge internet users' and publishers' attitudes about in-text advertising, and reports, not surprisingly, that "it didn't take long to discover that there was a predominantly negative stigma." According to Kredit, the primary reason was "the invasiveness of in-text ad technology. More specifically, they 'hate' the fact that the ad automatically launches on a mouse-over (when their cursor moves over a highlighted word)." Kredit suggests two simple solutions to work towards reversing the negative attitude: change from mouse-over activation to click activation and provide contextually relevant content in the in-text window.
MediaPost's Online Publishing Insider |
03-13-2008 10:29 am |
Industry News
AAN Hires New Director of Sales and Marketing
Rick Mundy has joined the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies as director of sales and marketing. He has a more than a decade of experience in newspapers, in sales, marketing, and publishing at various community newspapers, and also as federation manager at the Newspaper Association of America. Mundy's immediate focus will be on revitalizing the AAN CAN classified program. His first day on staff was March 4.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
03-12-2008 8:56 am |
Association News
