AAN News
Metro Spirit: Daily's Ad Calling Us Out Works to Our Advantagenew
Last week, we noted that the Augusta Chronicle ran a house ad targeting advertisers who bypassed the daily and bought space in the city's alt-weekly. "We heard nothing about it locally from customers or readers, and skipped over it a number of times as we perused the paper," writes Metro Spirit publisher Bryan Osborn. "All of this points to the fact that buying full pages in The Chronicle is as effective as throwing money into a burning fireplace." He says the daily's ad "is a great advertising testimonial ... for Metro Spirit."
Metro Spirit |
12-23-2008 12:55 pm |
Industry News
Layoffs Hit the Chicago Reader and Creative Loafing (Tampa)new
As the Creative Loafing bankruptcy case winds its way through the courts, Michael Miner reports that the Reader laid off more staffers last week. "Six more layoffs last Thursday reduced this paper's editorial staff to 17," Miner writes. "It was 38 when the old owners sold [Ben] Eason the paper." Creative Loafing (Tampa) also announced a handful of layoffs last week. MORE ON CL: Former Creative Loafing (Atlanta) editor Cliff Bostock offers his take on the problems at the Loaf.
Chicago Reader | Creative Loafing (Tampa) |
12-23-2008 8:49 am |
Industry News
New York Times Co. Hit with Copyright Suit Over Aggregated Contentnew
PaidContent.org |
12-23-2008 9:26 am |
Legal News
More on Huffington Post Concert Preview Dustupnew
HuffPo co-founder Jonah Peretti says the anger directed at the site for lifting entire concert previews from the Chicago Reader and other publications is misplaced. He tells Wired that the complete re-printing was a mistaken editorial call and that the site's intent is to send traffic to other publications when it aggregates content. MORE: Plenty of bloggers jumped on the HuffPo/Reader flap over the weekend. Here are two interesting takes, one from a search engine optimization perspective and another from fair use perspective.
Wired |
12-22-2008 12:54 pm |
Industry News
Recent Newsweek Cover Looks Very Familiar to the Oklahoma Gazette
Last week, Gazette editor Rob Collins alerted AAN News to the striking similarities between Newsweek's Dec. 15 cover and one published by the alt-weekly on Feb. 5, 2004. The Gazette's image, which was designed by art director Chris Street and shot by photographer Shannon Cornman, was one of three Gazette entries that won a 2005 AltWeekly Award. "Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words," Collins says.
AAN News |
12-22-2008 11:25 am |
Industry News
Mountain XPress Implements Cost-Cutting Measuresnew
Employees of the Asheville, N.C., alt-weekly will see an across-the-board cut in pay of between 5 and 10 percent effective Jan. 1, owner and publisher Jeff Fobes announced Friday. The paper has suffered a recent decline in classified and retail advertising, and Fobes expects the slide to continue in 2009. "Our strategy is to share the pain, so we're instituting a company-wide pay cut," he says. "Everyone feels the pain; everyone should have input into what must be an evolving response to the economy." ALSO FROM THE XPRESS: The paper recently discussed its web operations in a feature story on how local publications are dealing with online journalism.
Mountain XPress |
12-22-2008 9:56 am |
Industry News
Isthmus Names New Editornew
Dean Robbins, who has worked at the Madison, Wisc., alt-weekly on and off (mostly on) since 1983, will take over as editor on Jan. 5. "Isthmus has been without an editor in chief since former editor Marc Eisen stepped down from that role in October 2007," writes publisher Vince O'Hern. "Since that time the paper has been guided by an editorial board, which was formed when Eisen relinquished editorial management to concentrate on writing." Robbins, who recently took a six-month leave from the paper to help it through tough economic times, will be the fourth editor in the paper's nearly 33-year history.
Isthmus |
12-22-2008 9:35 am |
Industry News
New York Press Theater Critic Releases Book of Historic Photosnew
Turner Publishing has just released Leonard Jacobs' first book, Historic Photos of Broadway: New York Theater 1850-1970. For the hardcover book, Jacobs chose 240 photographs, organized them into coherent sections, and wrote accompanying text. Calling the book "at once concise and comprehensive," Curtain Up's reviewer writes that "historic photos of Broadway's showplaces and show people need a historian to guide us through these pages with facts and anecdotes, and Leonard Jacobs is just the man to make these pictures come to life."
Playbill | Curtain Up |
12-22-2008 9:03 am |
Honors & Achievements
CJR: L.A. Weekly's 30th Anniversary Issue a 'Forensically Phenomenal Read'new
Columbia Journalism Review |
12-22-2008 3:46 pm |
Honors & Achievements
Philly's Daily Papers Launch Local Music Websitenew
Online Media Daily |
12-22-2008 9:07 am |
Industry News
David Carr: Small NJ Paper Shuns the Web and Thrivesnew
The New York Times |
12-22-2008 9:06 am |
Industry News
Judge Allows Ben Eason to Retain Control of Creative Loafingnew
The bankruptcy court judge refused to grant a motion by lender Atalaya to give it ownership of the company yesterday, Creative Loafing (Tampa) reports. Judge Caryl E. Delano ruled that CL's reorganization plan should proceed, and that it was too early into the case to say the plan won't work. On a second part of Atalaya's takeover motion, the judge scheduled the final evidentiary hearing for Jan. 21, and a Jan. 26 hearing has been set to review CL's proposed reorganization plan.
Creative Loafing (Tampa) |
12-19-2008 3:52 pm |
Industry News
Willamette Week Drops Sponsorship of Inauguration Partynew
Editor Mark Zusman tells the Oregonian that WW is no longer involved with a Jan. 20 party the paper was slated to co-sponsor with the Democratic Party of Oregon. Zusman said earlier this week that he didn't know the paper was co-sponsoring the event with the Dems until the Oregonian brought it to his attention. The story hit Capitol Hill yesterday, with Republicans telling Roll Call that the co-sponsored party, together with WW's tough reporting on outgoing Senator Gordon Smith during this campaign season, was proof that the paper "was on a mission to oust the Senator."
The Oregonian |
12-19-2008 3:41 pm |
Industry News
North Carolina's Independent Weekly Announces Cutbacks, Two Layoffsnew
"After a year in which we had the most employees on staff in the paper's history -- 35 -- last week the Indy laid off two people, a reporter and the promotions coordinator, as well as reduced our freelance budget by 10 percent," Lisa Sorg writes in her editor's note this week. Sorg tells local blog Bull City Rising that the laid off employees are Vernal Coleman and Marny Rhodes, and that she and a number of other managers are taking voluntary pay cuts.
The Independent Weekly | Bull City Rising |
12-19-2008 3:28 pm |
Industry News
Portland Mercury Spoof Cover Draws Letter from National Geographicnew
For the paper's Halloween issue, the Mercury ran a cover disguising itself as an issue of National Geographic, which has trademarked its yellow-banded cover design. This week editor Steve Humphrey says he received a letter from National Geographic's executive vice president that proves "not everybody in the world is a humorless dick." The letter said the magazine's first instinct in similar cases is to issue a cease-and-desist letter, but it recognized that the Mercury cover "was not malicious appropriation, but all in good fun." The letter also urged the Mercury to encourage its readers to buy subscriptions to National Geographic.
The Porland Mercury |
12-19-2008 2:54 pm |
Industry News
