AAN News
Philadelphia Launches Promo Blitz Online and in Alt-Weekliesnew
The City of Brotherly Love is now the City of New Media Self-Marketing. The "uwishunu" campaign, announced by the mayor last week, marks the largest single investment by a U.S. city for a marketing effort centered on new media, according to the Bulletin. But print media also forms part of the two-year, $5 million plan. Along with a Web site featuring live blogging by locals and members of the Philadelphia arts community, the campaign will include custom-content inserts in alt-weeklies in New York, Boston, Providence, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. "The world has changed," proclaimed Philadelphia Mayor John Street, "and in this ever-changing world, people get their messages in a very different way."
The Bulletin |
01-11-2007 1:32 pm |
Industry News
MTV Begone: Did Alt-Weeklies Help Drive 'The Real World' to Sydney?new
Job ads for "The Real World" production assistants have been sited around Australia and traced back to the pioneering reality show's production company, reports TV Squad. Why Australia? The AOL blog offers a provocative thesis: that the reason for the trip abroad is that "alternative newsweeklies in American cities, like The Stranger in Seattle, have made it harder and harder for the Real World crew to shoot without interruption and open hostility from the locals." (Insert long pat on back here.) According to TV Squad, the Real World's last ventures abroad, in Paris and London, were not considered critical or popular successes.
TV Squad (AOL.com) |
01-11-2007 12:58 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, The Stranger
Capital Newspapers to Launch Madison Print Weeklynew
The Wisconsin media company, which last year shuttered its faux-alt Coreweekly after 18 months, is set to launch a new free weekly on Feb. 15, Isthmus reports. The tabloid, named the Post, will start small -- 24 pages, 15,000 copies -- and include classified ads from the parent company's dailies and print versions of blog entries from Madison.com's "Post" page. The paper will be edited by a Madison blogger.
Isthmus |
01-11-2007 12:03 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Management
Commercial Appeal Adds Three Alt-Weekly Vets to Staff
Memphis' daily newspaper beefed up its staff last year by hiring three seasoned alt-weekly veterans in the space of a few months. According to executives at the paper, the new hires don't reflect a conscious recruitment strategy, but the addition of investigative reporter Trevor Aaronson, music writer Bob Mehr and former C-Ville Weekly publisher Rob Jiranek (pictured) represents three small steps in the CA's efforts to adapt to the Internet age. "It's happening throughout the building," Jiranek says. "We're blowing up the newspaper."
(FULL STORY)
AAN News |
01-11-2007 6:19 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Management
Boston Media Types Hail Keohane
The Boston Herald's media reporter calls it "(a) big loss." A local TV guy says it's "an unwelcome blow to this city’s precious supply of sarcasm and creative loathing." All of this wailing and gnashing of teeth is for Joe Keohane, the Weekly Dig editor who announced yesterday that he was leaving the paper next month.
"Singlehandedly, he has transformed a once-lousy altweekly into a lousy altweekly with a brilliant editorial (by himself) and a handful of other great features ... that spoke truth to power," says a Boston Globe blogger. Meanwhile, Dig president Jeff Lawrence wonders what all the fuss is about. After all, he tells the Herald, the Dig doesn’t encourage editorial employees to stick around for more than five years.
Boston Herald | Boston Globe | Boston CBS4 |
01-10-2007 4:59 pm |
Industry News
Seattle Weekly Writer Spells -- and Drinks -- His Way to King Beenew
Gavin Borchert, an arts writer for the alt-weekly, has triumphed in the first Seattle Spelling Bee, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The newly crowned 43-year-old champion defeated 11 other contestants -- including fellow AAN-affiliated writer Andrew Bleeker of The Stranger -- in an alcohol-drenched evening of "cockalorums" and "gjetost." For his efforts, Borchert received $200 in cash and gift certificates. That, and glory glorious glory.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
01-10-2007 4:17 pm |
Honors & Achievements
Tags: Editorial, Seattle Weekly
Former Music Editor Returns to The Stranger as Freelancernew
Two months after being fired from The Stranger for allowing the coordinator for club advertising to write for the paper's music blog under a false name, Dave Segal is back, reports the Seattle Weekly. "Segal is freelancing for the paper again," confirms The Stranger editor Dan Savage. "He made a serious error of judgment as a manager and editor, not as a writer or critic. He remains a terrific music writer. We're very happy to have his column in the paper again."
Seattle Weekly |
01-10-2007 1:21 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, The Stranger
Henry Waxman to Form Subcommittee on Information Accessnew
The Democratic chair of the newly re-named House Government Reform Committee has announced the creation of a subcommittee dedicated to increasing the flow of government information, reports The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The newly born Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives will promote transparency in government, says the California congressman. "We have legislative jurisdiction over [the Freedom of Information Act] and some of the other issues that relate to openness in government," Waxman told the The Hill. ALSO: Florida's new Governor plans an open-government office.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press |
01-10-2007 1:00 pm |
Legal News
Tags: Editorial
Apple's iPhone Could Revolutionize Mobile Advertisingnew
MediaPost's Marketing Daily |
01-10-2007 4:04 pm |
Industry News
Boston's Weekly Dig Announces Big, Big, Big Editorial Changes
Joe Keohane will be stepping down as editor next month and will be replaced by current music/food/commerce editor Michael Brodeur, the Dig announced today. "Running this zoo has been enormously fun," says Keohane, "but I've always said that turnover is key to keeping an alt-weekly fresh, and Brodeur's the guy for the job." The Dig also announced that staff writer Paul McMorrow will be promoted to news and features editor; Jim Stanton has been hired "to rehabilitate the paper's disastrously bad website;" and
Salon.com writer Cintra Wilson will soon begin contributing a semimonthly celebrity column.
(FULL STORY)
Boston Weekly Dig press release |
01-09-2007 7:31 pm |
Press Releases
Portland Mercury Incites Local Blog Warnew
When law professor-turned-blogger Jack Bogdanski posted an item about a shooting outside a downtown hip-hop club, the Mercury's Matt Davis accused him of inciting racism, leading to a flame war that spread to other local sites, reports the Oregonian. Bogdanski responded by blocking the alt-weekly's IP address, preventing Mercury employees from posting comments on his site. "It's like a jihad, when these guys (at the Mercury) get going, they just pour it on," Bogdanski tells the Oregonian. To which Davis responds: "Regardless of (Bogdanski's) readership or our readership, I don't think we should be cutting conversation down. It's important that Portland have a conversation about race."
The Oregonian |
01-09-2007 7:01 pm |
Industry News
Print Advertising Slump Likely to Stick Around, Hurting Marginsnew
Get used to it. That's the message for the daily-newspaper industry found in a new report on print profit margins released by Prudential Equity Research, reports Editor & Publisher. The article points to McClatchy's surprise sale of its flagship daily, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, as yet another sign of the times. "Many newspapers operate at a 30 percent [margin], but those don't seem to be the ones for sale," says Steven Barlow, Prudential's lead analyst.
Editor & Publisher |
01-09-2007 6:29 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Management
Poynter: Online and Print Headlines Need to Work, not Matchnew
Amy Gahran says that papers that use the same headline for an article in print and on their Web site are making a mistake. "Online headlines should be intuitive, not cryptic, vague, or leading," says Gahran. "A well-crafted online headline provides the reader with sufficient information and incentive to decide whether to click a link to read the story." NOTE FROM AAN: Descriptive headlines also optimize search-engine results.
Poynter Online |
01-09-2007 6:16 pm |
Industry News
Tags: Editorial, Electronic Publishing
Musto: I've Had Free Reign at The Village Voicenew
In an interview promoting his new book,
a collection from his long-running Voice column, Michael Musto says that in his "billions of years" at the paper, he has been censored only once, for a JonBenet joke that even he agrees was way off-base. "Otherwise, I've been given free reign to overdo, overemote, overstate and be overjoyed," the popular gossip columnist tells the New York Blade. "I’m extremely spoiled to have been coddled, nurtured, liberated and allowed to carry on like a free range chicken."
New York Blade |
01-09-2007 5:25 pm |
Industry News
Tags: The Village Voice
Man Suspended From Work for Sharing 'Ask a Mexican'new
Richard Diefenbach read Gustavo Arellano's syndicated column for the first time in the Weekly Alibi, while on vacation in Albuquerque. He was so enthused with the column -- which that week addressed readers' questions about "the Mexican love affair with chicken and similarities between Mexicans and the Irish," according to Arellano -- that when he returned to work in his hometown of Newport, Ore., he printed a copy and gave it to a Mexican-American co-worker. The following day Diefenbach was suspended from work for five days without pay, accused of racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
OC Weekly |
01-09-2007 5:13 pm |
Industry News
