Texas Gov. Rick Perry and lawmakers continued to take action Monday on sexual abuse and cover-up at a state youth correctional facility, the Daily Texan reports. While the governor did not put the Texas Youth Commission under conservatorship, as recommended last week by the legislature, he approved a rehabilitation plan that included naming a "special master" of the commission. In addition, the governor yesterday declared two bills related to the scandal "emergency items," allowing them to be quickly passed through the state legislature.
Joe Keohane, who was recently replaced at the Dig by Michael Brodeur, is now a staff writer at Boston Magazine, WBZ-TV reports. Boston Magazine's parent company, Metrocorp, bought a majority interest in the Dig in 2004.
Nancy Brands Ward, who had been with the California alt-weekly since September, left the paper last week, the Sacramento Bee reports. According to publisher Jeff vonKaenel, Melinda Welsh will again serve as interim editor, a post she held for 13 months before Brands Ward was hired.
That was quick. Less than one business day after David Blum was fired, Village Voice Media announce that the editor of New Times Broward-Palm Beach will replace him. Ortega, 43, who started his career in 1995 at the Phoenix New Times, is the third editor-in-chief hired by the Manhattan alt-weekly since Don Forst left 14 months ago. "Lincoln promoted General Grant late in the game. Stalin promoted Marshall Zukoff late in the game," explains Executive Editor Michael Lacey. "Tony Ortega is the right man at the right time."
On Friday afternoon, a Missouri judge ordered The Pitch and the Kansas City Star to purge online stories about the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (BPU) that were based on a confidential letter written by BPU's attorney. Judge Kelly Moorehouse's ruling (PDF file) states that the letter is "privileged legal communication," and also barred the papers from publishing information contained in the confidential document or "otherwise referring to it in any public medium." Attorneys for The Pitch have requested an emergency hearing to settle the matter. "This judge made a serious error," says Steve Suskin, legal counsel for the Pitch's parent company, Village Voice Media. "The injunction so clearly violates the First Amendment that we have no choice but to fight for these fundamental principles in the appellate courts." (The Pitch's original story is still available online in a Google cache.)
Despite earlier reports that Blum was fired as a result of comments he made at a staff meeting last week, Voice spokesperson Maggie Shnayerson tells AP that the meeting was only a "catalyst" for the editor's dismissal. "It was not a decision that was reached in any kind of knee-jerk way," says Shnayerson. Blum's response to concerns about racial diversity that were raised during the meeting may have offended some people, Voice staff writer Wayne Barrett confirms, but everyone seems to agree that his remarks weren't a firing offense. "There were disagreements about the amount of emphasis he had given so far to hiring minorities," an unnamed staffer tells the New York Times. "There was nothing said in that meeting by David Blum that was racist."
Jenny Yuen, a photographer for the Georgia Straight, is "one of four twentysomething gal pals" in Susan Lyons' "Awesome Foursome" series, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix reports in a feature on successful romance novelists. Lyons' website summarizes the plot of Hot in Here, the series' second installment: "Journalist Jenny Yuen lands a very steamy assignment: cover a firefighter calendar competition. Her personal favorite? Mr. February. Also known as Scott Jackman. Also known as hot, hotter, hottest!"
Maine Community Publications, a subsidiary of the Seattle Times Company, recently announced the launch of The Maine Switch, a "free lifestyle weekly targeted to adults ages 25-45 years old," according to a press release. "Short and sweet is the soul of this magazine," says a blog entry on Switch's MySpace page. "You won't find long, boring reports in Switch, that's not our style. Instead we love colorful photos, funky facts and quirky pieces." The Seattle Times Company also owns Maine's large daily, the Portland Press Herald, which has twice before launched similar products with no success, the Portland Phoenix reports.
At a Friday afternoon meeting, Village Voice staffers were told that Blum was "no longer the editor of the paper" as a result of unspecified comments he made that were "unacceptable," according to Gawker. Radar reports that Bill Jensen, director of Web and digital operations for Village Voice Media, has been named interim editor.
The Atlanta alt-weekly's story on the Stormfront White Nationalist Community web forum, "A Kinder, Gentler Racism," led to a landslide of hateful and nasty comments on the paper's website. The avalanche may have been triggered by a post on the Vanguard News Network Forum encouraging "everyone here [to] take a minute, breeze through the article and comment on the Creative Loafing site about it." Despite charges of censorship leveled by the white nationalists, Web Editor Lea Holland says that only one comment has been deleted, "because the link was dead." The incident highlights the balancing act papers perform while monitoring their sites' comments. "While we all have mixed feelings about this, I think ultimately our readers and the public good are better served by letting these guys show who they are," Editor Ken Edelstein tells AAN News. "I have enough faith in our readers to know that the overwhelming majority will be repulsed by what they see -- but also informed at the same time."
- Go to the previous page
- 1
- …
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- …
- 152
- Go to the next page
