AAN News
Houston Couple's Pain Is Network's Gainnew
 
      
      
      
      
        
          Shani and Chad Walter lost one of their twin baby boys. Thanks to ABC's reality show "Houston Medical,"
                                        thousands of Americans got to witness their pain. Audiences loved it. The Walters tell Houston Press staff writer Jennifer Mathieu they feel
                                  taken advantage of and exploited by the production
                                  company and a hospital eager for national
                                  publicity.
          
        
      
    
    
    
    
    The Battle of the Paddlenew
 
      
      
      
      
        
          The St. Louis Table Tennis Club is as strong as it's been in 20 years, boasting a still-active granddaddy who had his mug spread across a Wheaties box in 1936. Up Interstate 55, a fledgling movement financed by Chicago millionaire Robert Blackwell, Jr. is afoot -- squarely aimed at making the heartland a veritable China West for U.S. table tennis, which, some believe, is a Tiger Woods away from rubbing shoulders with more popular U.S. sports. Mike Seely of the Riverfront Times looks at this pingpong phenom.
          
        
      
    
    
    
    
    Sex in the Middle Schoolnew
 
      
      
      
      
        
          Few parents are aware of the kinds of 
choices many teens must now make as a 
regular part of early courtship, or that 
oral sex is now an issue for boys and 
girls barely in their teens. LEO sent a 
trio of  interns, all recent local high school 
graduates, into the streets of Louisville to 
talk to teenagers, parents, counselors, 
doctors and others about sexuality in 
middle school. Joanna Richards, 
Andrew Tangel and Nicole Leist 
spent months researching this story, and 
LEO editors "eventually had to pry it from 
their hands because they just kept 
digging and digging for more 
information," says an editor's note.
          
        
      
    
    
    
    
    New News Rack Law in New Yorknew
 
      
      
      
      
        
          New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has 
signed a news rack law that regulates 
where newspaper boxes can be placed 
and how they must be maintained. Most 
newspapers in the city backed the 
legislation, which stops short of 
requiring modular commercial racks.
          
        
      
    
    
      
        Editor & Publisher  | 
      
      09-03-2002  4:51 pm  | 
      Industry News    
      
    
    
      Tags: Circulation
    
    
    Alt-Weekly Personal Ad Results in Groundbreaking Gay Partnershipnew
 
      
      
      
      
        
          The first gay couple to have a commitment/civil
union announcement published in the New York Times, Daniel Gross
and Steven Goldstein,
met through a personal ad in the Washington City Paper. According to the announcement, Gross's ad read: "Nice Jewish boy, 5 feet 8 inches, 22, funny, well-read, dilettantish, self-deprecating, Ivy League, the kind of boy Mom fantasized about." He got 35 responses and one lifetime commitment.
          
        
      
    
    
      
        New York Times  | 
      
      09-03-2002  2:12 pm  | 
      Industry News    
      
    
    
      
    
    
    How a City Paper Ad Nearly Triggered an International Incidentnew
          Howard Altman, executive editor of Philadelphia City Paper, describes for AJR how a Saint Jack's Bar ad featuring the Thai King in hip-hop regalia nearly severed relations between the United States and Thailand. "It certainly was not the first advertising complaint City Paper had ever received, considering that we once printed an ad for a bar depicting the Virgin Mary with udders," Altman writes. "But this complaint was different. It was from an unhappy representative of a foreign government."
          
        
      
    
    
      
        AJR  | 
      
      09-03-2002  11:19 am  | 
      Industry News    
      
    
    
      
    
    
    Staff Doesn't Roll Eyes When Wm.(TM) Steven Humphrey Leaves the Roomnew
          The Portland Mercury just turned two, and its editor may sometimes act like a terrible two, Joseph Gallivan writes in the Portland Tribune. William Steven Humphrey's  antics range from flinging gunpowder "snaps" around the room to performing obscene acts with the doorknobs at rival Willamette Week, Gallivan writes. "He's mature, and he's a little boy and he's a disgusting pervert all at once," Dan Savage tells Gallivan. "I admire how a fortysomething can use the word
                                    'pee-pee' as much as he does," Mark Zusman, editor of Willamette Week, says.
          
        
      
    
    
      
        Portland Tribune  | 
      
      09-03-2002  9:51 am  | 
      Industry News    
      
    
    
      Tags: Editorial, The Portland Mercury
    
    
    