In an effort to reach more of the growing 20- and 30-something market of real estate purchasers, Edina Realty of the Upper Midwest is redirecting about half of its almost $8 million annual ad budget to "media more commonly frequented by Gen X and Gen Y readers," including electronic billboards, regular radio spots, the Internet and alt-weeklies, according to McClatchy Newspapers. "To move forward over the next five to 10 years, we have to be positioned differently than we have been in the past," Edina President Bob Peltier tells McClatchy.

Continue ReadingAlt-Weeklies to Get Share of Ad Dollars ‘Redirected’ by Realtor

The marketing campaign, which starts today, aims to attract more women and young readers by featuring celebrities -- like singer Sheryl Crow, architect Maya Lin and football player Tiki Barber -- in ads set to run in magazines and newspapers, and on the Web. At the same time, according to the New York Times, the Newspaper Association of America is launching a campaign targeted at advertisers which emphasizes that "the newspaper arrives not just on paper but via the Web, podcast, e-mail and on mobile video screens."

Continue ReadingWall Street Journal Woos Younger Readers With New Campaign

Last week we reported that Vancouver alt-weekly Georgia Straight broke the story that British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell and his wife own shares of stock in mining giant Alcan Inc., which does business with the state-owned water utility. In fact, the article also appeared in Monday Magazine, an AAN-member paper that is published in Victoria, the seat of the provincial government. Russ Francis, who wrote the story, contributes to both papers. Blame Canada? No, blame Canada.com, the Web site of the National Post, which is where we found the partially erroneous story.

Continue ReadingCorrection: Georgia Straight and Monday Magazine Report Conflict

Tom Robbins is the second distinguished journalist to occupy the post at Hunter College, established to honor Newfield. Robbins, a former colleague of Newfield's at both the Voice and the Daily News, will teach a course entitled "Urban Investigative Reporting" and will also assist students in researching and writing a lengthy article or series of articles focused on an aspect of city life. "Whether tomorrow's journalists are writing online or on paper, we need more of them who understand and share Jack Newfield's passion for justice and the city he lived in," Robbins says in a press release.

Continue ReadingVillage Voice Reporter Named Jack Newfield Visiting Professor

Statistics released this week by the Pulp and Paper Products Council show that, in 2006, total U.S. newsprint consumption decreased 6.3 percent from the previous year. Paul Quinn of Salman Partners tells Editor & Publisher newsprint consumption is down 24.2 percent since its 1999 peak, as publishers have "reduce[d] consumption by format (broadsheet to tabloid and web-width reductions) and page count (elimination of daily stock tables)." The price of newsprint has seen a large drop in recent months, as well, according to Deutche Bank's Mark Wilde, falling $35/tonne in the past two months to $614.74/tonne.

Continue ReadingNewsprint Consumption — And Price — Continue to Drop

After taking a pounding for a good week from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the mainstream-media syndication service finally admitted yesterday that its earlier story, about a judge's ruling on the SFBG-Media Alliance motion seeking access to documents in the Hearst-MediaNews antitrust suit, left out some important details. "The story should have noted that Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc. and The Hearst Corp ... had earlier voluntarily released some records that had been filed under seal," AP now says. Most importantly, SFBG, AP, and Bay Area papers owned by Hearst and MediaNews report that those records, and other documents unsealed by the judge in response to SFBG's motion, demonstrate the two companies have had a cozy relationship for decades, even before they consummated the complex deal that led to the antitrust suit.

Continue ReadingAP Waves White Flag, Issues Hearst-MediaNews ‘Clarification’

Last week we noted a story in Springfield, Illinois' State-Journal Register about Shatonia Levy, a Houston Press marketing manager who was also a former high school basketball legend. Apparently, the champion of the Pillow Fight League, who goes by the stage name "Champain," also works in the marketing department of an alternative newspaper, although the Boston Herald doesn't bother to tell us which one. Champain, if you're out there, let us know. We honor all of our pillow-fight champions.

Continue ReadingAnother Alt-Weekly Marketing Athlete

The Texas alt-weekly recently published a cover story criticizing the Trans-Texas Corridor, arguing "that the project could wipe towns off the map, gobble up about a million acres of farm and ranch land, crumble the state’s current highway system, and gouge motorists with tolls as high as 44 cents a mile." An item on the paper's Web site this week notes that another Texas publisher which also wrote critically of the project was acquired for "upward of $100 million" by Macquarie Media Group of Australia, which is a sister company to Macquarie Infrastructure Group, one of the world’s major toll road operators. "Surely Fort Worth Weekly publisher Lee Newquist’s phone will be ringing any second now with a call from Australia and an offer of millions of dollars," predicts the paper's Static column.

Continue ReadingWill the Aussies Buy Fort Worth Weekly?

The latest to leave are OC Weekly feature editor Rebecca Schoenkopf, whose Commie Girl column won last year's big-paper AltWeekly Award for best political column, and City Pages music critic Jim Walsh, who served two stints at the Minneapolis alt-weekly, the latest beginning in 2003. OC Register columnist Frank Mickadeit reports that Schoenkopf has "been ready to leave the Weekly for some time, simply because she needed a change" and that "her dream job would be editor-in-chief of an alternative weekly somewhere." In her farewell column, Schoenkopf puts the paper's recent ownership change into context: "It could have been worse: Dean Singleton could have bought our newspaper. At least this way, we still get to call people twats." (OC Weekly music editor Chris Ziegler also left the paper, Schoenkopf notes in her column.)

Continue ReadingMore Edit-Staff Departures at Village Voice Media