SimplyHired.com launched a service yesterday that allows Web publishers to present contextual links to job ads, reports Online Media Daily. The program is like Google AdSense for job listings, with links to recruitment ads that are relevant to the subject matter of the sites on which they are posted. The company's CEO says the program is designed for smaller publishers. "What this new offering allows us to do is really take the job search that's on our site out to the various niche communities," he says.

Continue ReadingJob Search Site Syndicates Job Listings

Newsstand, London's fourth free-circulation daily to launch in 18 months, will draw half of its content from stories previously published on the Web, reports Media Life Magazine. When the paper debuts in April, Newsstand's managing director expects 80 percent of the content to come from Web sites and 20 percent from blogs, and appears to assume he will get it for free from publishers abd bloggers interested in gaining exposure to a wider audience. Newsstand is also stealing a page from the Web with its "hyperlocal" strategy, in which a quarter of the paper's news hole will be reserved for news about the neighborhoods in which it will be distributed.

Continue ReadingWeb-to-Print London Freebie Set to Launch

The federal government announced today that reputed Klansman James Ford Seale has been arrested and indicted for the 1964 murder of Charles Moore and Henry Dee, two young black hitchhikers in Meadville, Miss. Following the announcement, AAN issued a press release noting that the Dee-Moore murder case gained new steam when Free Press editor Donna Ladd (pictured) and a team of young Mississippians first reported the news that Seale was still alive -- after the local Gannett daily and other media had previously reported he was dead. Ladd's series about the murders won an investigative-reporting award in last year's AltWeekly Awards contest.

Continue ReadingJackson Free Press Reporting Revived Klansman Case

Four years after the AAN-member paper Illinois Times challenged an official police account of how a black officer responded to an incident involving rape, the case will finally go to court, reports the The State-Journal Register. Dusty Rhodes' series about the case in the Springfield, Ill. alt-weekly sparked public outrage and led a number of African-American cops to step forward in a group lawsuit against the city alleging racial discrimination. The so-called "black officers case" goes back to Halloween night, 2001, when a 35-year-old rookie cop named Renatta Frazier responded to a call at the apartment of the daughter of another police officer. Frazier was originally criticized for not doing enough to stop the assault, but the Illinois Times later showed that she was never in a position to do so.

Continue ReadingDiscrimination Case Triggered by Alt-Weekly Finally Sees Trial

As a guard for Springfield (Ill.) High School in the early 90's, Shatonia Levy scored 2,043 points and made all-state teams chosen by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and the Champaign News-Gazette. It is perhaps appropriate, then, that she ended up in the newspaper biz. The brain-tumor survivor, who now runs promotions and marketing for the Houston weekly, is a high school basketball "legend," according to a profile in the State-Journal Register. "She has the best all-around skills of any kid that I have seen come out of the city," says a former coach. "Her instincts were just so good. There was nothing she couldn't do."

Continue ReadingHouston Press Marketing Manager Also Former Hoops Star

Pulitzer Prize-winning newsman and Des Moines Cityview co-owner Michael Gartner is facing a revolt by the board of regents -- which he chairs -- over accusations that he is scaring away the university's most promising presidential candidates, reports the Associated Press. As the school struggles to find and keep a president, Gartner's critics say he is "tactless, abrasive and ill-suited to the collegial ways of academia," according to the report. His supporters admit he can be prickly, but chalk it up to his preference for results-oriented leadership. Gartner says his modus operandi changed after his 17-year-old son died unexpectedly of diabetes in 1994. "I've always been outspoken. But I became even more outspoken," he says. "Because, I figure, what's the worst thing could happen to me than what's already happened? Why pull your punches? Just do what you think is right.''

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Owner In Faculty Row at Univ. of Iowa

The Village Voice Media paper announced yesterday that Cleveland Scene managing editor Kevin Hoffman would replace Steve Perry, who resigned earlier this week. Former City Pages co-owner Tom Bartel (the brother of the paper's current publisher, Mark Bartel) tells the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he thinks Hoffman and present VVM management deserve a chance. "They've produced some terrific editors and stories over the years," Bartel says. "But anybody who comes in from out of town will have a certain learning curve. He needs to know the community he's covering."

Continue ReadingCity Pages Names New Editor