At a debate held in a local bar over the weekend, Seattle mayoral candidates Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan were given one minute to answer each question, with the option of being granted a time extension ... if they took a shot of whiskey. Weekly managing editor and debate co-moderator Mike Seely tells KING 5 News that the forum was designed to get the candidates to show off their personalities instead of relying on the usual sound bites, and also to bring the race to a new audience. "We figure we had a captive audience that had about no interest in politics, and we figured we'd force feed them politics," Seely says.

Continue ReadingSeattle Weekly’s Mayoral Debate Helps Candidates Reach New Audience

After reading the Weekly's Sept. 1 profile of Eugene and Yukiko Gatlin, former patients of Group Health who went bankrupt paying its insurance premiums, the "boutique primary care provider" Qliance contacted the paper with an offer to help. The company, which doesn't work through insurance but charges patients a flat monthly fee for primary care at one of its clinics, will waive the fee for the Gatlins until they can afford it at some point down the line. "Miracles do happen," Eugene Gatlin says, though he tells the Weekly he's still concerned about the cost of the couple's medications.

Continue ReadingSeattle Weekly Story Leads to Free Health Care for Couple in Need

"When David Brewster started the Weekly, I thought it was a fabulous idea because Seattle didn't have anything like the New Yorker but it's a rather sophisticated city," Alan Furst told The Stranger in an interview last month. Furst says that when Brewster approached him about writing for the paper, he was told he could write about anything, so he decided he wanted to write a football column. "The Nordstrom family had just bought the franchise for the Seahawks, and they brought in and unwrapped a brand-new team and there I was up in the press box, eating free hot dogs. It was great!"

Continue ReadingNovelist Remembers the Early Days of the Seattle Weekly

Five alt-weeklies won a number of awards in the Oregon and Southwest Washington chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists' 2008 Excellence in Journalism Awards. Among non-daily newspapers in Oregon, Willamette Week took home 10 first-place awards, while Eugene Weekly took home one. Among alt-weeklies in the Northwest region, WW won six first-place awards; Seattle Weekly won four; the Missoula Independent won two; and the Pacific Northwest Inlander won one.

Continue ReadingAAN Members Pick Up Dozens of SPJ Awards in Pacific Northwest

Cocktail Compass, which the alt-weekly rolled out last week, gives iPhone users information on the happy hours currently happening at bars close by. The app allows users to search for bars that have specific attributes, like wifi, dancing or outdoor seating, and it also includes a feature to call a local cab company when the drinking is done. Seattle Weekly responded to the Stranger's news by saying it had launched "the Ripper," a "game-changing new rotary phone app."

Continue ReadingThe Stranger Launches Happy Hour iPhone App

Miami New Times' Lee Klein and Seattle Weekly's Jonathan Kauffman finished first in the Newspaper and Internet categories, respectively, in this year's Bert Greene Awards. In addition, the Austin Chronicle's MM Pack was a finalist in the Newspaper category. The awards, which are organized by the International Association of Culinary Professionals, "recognize excellence in food journalism." Winners were announced last weekend in Denver.

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Scribes Win National Food Writing Awards

Seattle Weekly, The Village Voice and Westword have all won 2008 Prevention for a Safer Society (PASS) Awards, which honor journalists "who try to focus America's attention on our criminal justice system, juvenile justice system, and child welfare systems in a thoughtful and considerate manner." The awards are sponsored by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Continue ReadingThree VVM Papers Win Criminal Justice Reporting Awards

Mike Seely's Seattle's Best Dive Bars: Drinking & Diving in the Emerald City "chronicles the nooks, crannies, and characters in over 100 bars within the Seattle city limits," he writes. "By and large, these places are the most distinctive, preservation-worthy bars in a city where watering holes of their ilk are swiftly disappearing. What they have in common isn't so much attributes, but a state of mind -- you just know one when you see one."

Continue ReadingSeattle Weekly Managing Editor Releases Book on Dive Bars

Knute Berger, who edited the Weekly for nearly 15 years before leaving in July 2006, is releasing Pugetopolis: A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice this month. Many of the essays in the book, which covers the region's identity, first ran as columns in the Weekly. "To me the book has been my sort of ongoing personal exploration to be a Seattleite," Berger tells the Seattle Times. "I hope that people will read it and just sort of enjoy thinking about our identity."

Continue ReadingFormer Seattle Weekly Editor Releases Collection of Columns

Miami New Times' Lee Klein won a first-place award for Newspaper Restaurant Criticism in this year's Association of Food Journalists awards. Robb Walsh of the Houston Press and Randall Roberts of Riverfront Times took second and third place, respectively, in the Newspaper Food Feature category; and Seattle Weekly's Maggie Dutton finished second in the Newspaper Food Column category. Winners were announced last weekend at a banquet in Houston.

Continue ReadingAlt-Weeklies Win Four Food Journalism Awards