The fake Twitter stream of San Francisco Bay Guardian publisher Bruce Brugmann is "drunken, outrageous, [and] rails against Village Voice Media executive editor Mike Lacey," the SF Weekly reports. "Once upon a time, if you wanted to roast your newspaper editor, you would make a drunken speech at an office party or draw a funny cartoon," the Weekly notes. "But that was back in the bad old days, before fake Twitter accounts created the perfect medium for a constant stream of homage/mockery." The Weekly adds that it is not behind the account, which has the handle "Bossy_Brugmann," despite its ongoing public battles with the Guardian and its founder.

Continue ReadingFake Bruce Brugmann Now on Twitter

The California Newspaper Publishers Association recently gave out 480 first and second place awards in its 2009 Better Newspapers contest, and nine alt-weeklies received at least one. The Sacramento News & Review won ten awards, including firsts for Public Service, Columns, Sports Story, Front Page, Freedom of Information. SF Weekly won seven awards, including first-place finishes for Writing, Investigative/Enterprise Reporting and Environmental/Ag Resource Reporting. The North Coast Journal won six awards, including firsts in the Writing, Local News Coverage, Business/Financial Story and Environmental/Ag Resource Reporting categories. Palo Alto Weekly took home five awards -- all first-place wins -- in the Editorial Comment, Local News Coverage, Sports Coverage, Feature Photo, Best Website and General Excellence categories. Chico News & Review won two awards, both firsts, for Editorial Pages and Special Issue. Pacific Sun also took home two awards, both firsts, for Feature Story and Lifestyle Coverage. Metro Silicon Valley, Pasadena Weekly and the San Francisco Bay Guardian each took home one award.

Continue ReadingNine California AAN Members Take Home State Press Awards

Local sustainability advocate Stacy Mitchell writes that independent business groups across the nation have brought the "bank local" message into their already existing push to urge people to "buy local." She points to an campaign the Express was a part of last year that highlighted the benefits of using a local credit union or bank, and also produced a guide to community-conscious financial choices.

Continue ReadingEast Bay Express & Others Pushing ‘Bank Local’ in Addition to ‘Buy Local’

The San Francisco Bay Guardian's Tim Redmond and Salt Lake City Weekly's John Saltas are joined by Amy Mitchell of the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism for a wide-ranging discussion on the alt-weekly industry on Salt Lake City public radio station KUER. Among the topics covered: how alt-weeklies are faring on the web, the future of the industry and competing with the daily press.

Continue ReadingRedmond, Saltas Discuss the State of the Alt-Weekly World

California Superior Court Judge Marla J. Miller ruled on Tuesday that she has no authority to amend a 2008 predatory-pricing judgment since the case is already pending before the California Court of Appeal. The San Francisco Bay Guardian had asked the court to include Village Voice Media LLC and Village Voice Media Holdings LLC, as part of its efforts to collect the money it was awarded in the judgment against SF Weekly. The Weekly has refused to pay the $21 million it owes the Guardian, saying it will pay once it exhausts its options to appeal.

Continue ReadingJudge Won’t Include SF Weekly Parent Co. in ’08 Judgment

As of April 7, the Georgia Straight was number one, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian number four, on the list, which is put together by the researchers and students at The Committee for Newspaper and Media Integrity. Oxford University law student Aron Ping D'Souza, one of the project leaders, says they initially combed the web looking for "key terminologies" about newspaper names, articles and links. "We surveyed millions of pieces of data and found where people were using language that would indicate reputability based on a theory called natural-language queries, and we developed preliminary data from that," he says. "Now that people can give rankings in supplement to that chatter-theory-based argument, we can verify the method in some ways, and also we can improve the method."

Continue ReadingTwo Alt-Weeklies Land on ‘Most Reputable Papers in the World’ List

A San Francisco Superior Court judge last week granted a motion by the San Francisco Bay Guardian to set a hearing to determine if Bank of Montreal, the lead bank for SF Weekly, should be held in contempt of court for telling the Weekly's advertisers that it has first right to that paper's money. The Guardian contends that the March ruling allowing the Guardian to take half of the Weekly's ad revenue means it has first right to any money from the Weekly, not the bank. The hearing is set for April 30.

Continue ReadingJudge Sets Hearing on Bay Guardian’s Contempt Claim Against Bank

San Francisco Bay Guardian executive editor Tim Redmond writes that while he thought Eli Sanders' recent story on the feud between the Guardian and SF Weekly in The Stranger was mostly right, he faults Sanders (and others) for casting the legal battle as a clash of egos. "The thing is, Bruce [Brugmann] and Mike [Lacey] haven't hated each other for decades," Redmond writes. "They weren't terribly close, but they got along fine -- and sometimes, they were political allies." He points to their unlikely alliance at the 1997 AAN Convention (three years after New Times purchased SF Weekly) to push a bylaws measure (and digs up a photo of the two arm-in-arm) as proof. "They were almost, sorta, kinda pals," he writes. "At least for a few minutes."

Continue ReadingBay Guardian Editor: The SF Weekly Suit ‘Wasn’t Personal’