Two months after being fired from The Stranger for allowing the coordinator for club advertising to write for the paper's music blog under a false name, Dave Segal is back, reports the Seattle Weekly. "Segal is freelancing for the paper again," confirms The Stranger editor Dan Savage. "He made a serious error of judgment as a manager and editor, not as a writer or critic. He remains a terrific music writer. We're very happy to have his column in the paper again."
The Democratic chair of the newly re-named House Government Reform Committee has announced the creation of a subcommittee dedicated to increasing the flow of government information, reports The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The newly born Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives will promote transparency in government, says the California congressman. "We have legislative jurisdiction over [the Freedom of Information Act] and some of the other issues that relate to openness in government," Waxman told the The Hill. ALSO: Florida's new Governor plans an open-government office.
Joe Keohane will be stepping down as editor next month and will be replaced by current music/food/commerce editor Michael Brodeur, the Dig announced today. "Running this zoo has been enormously fun," says Keohane, "but I've always said that turnover is key to keeping an alt-weekly fresh, and Brodeur's the guy for the job." The Dig also announced that staff writer Paul McMorrow will be promoted to news and features editor; Jim Stanton has been hired "to rehabilitate the paper's disastrously bad website;" and Salon.com writer Cintra Wilson will soon begin contributing a semimonthly celebrity column.
When law professor-turned-blogger Jack Bogdanski posted an item about a shooting outside a downtown hip-hop club, the Mercury's Matt Davis accused him of inciting racism, leading to a flame war that spread to other local sites, reports the Oregonian. Bogdanski responded by blocking the alt-weekly's IP address, preventing Mercury employees from posting comments on his site. "It's like a jihad, when these guys (at the Mercury) get going, they just pour it on," Bogdanski tells the Oregonian. To which Davis responds: "Regardless of (Bogdanski's) readership or our readership, I don't think we should be cutting conversation down. It's important that Portland have a conversation about race."
Get used to it. That's the message for the daily-newspaper industry found in a new report on print profit margins released by Prudential Equity Research, reports Editor & Publisher. The article points to McClatchy's surprise sale of its flagship daily, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, as yet another sign of the times. "Many newspapers operate at a 30 percent [margin], but those don't seem to be the ones for sale," says Steven Barlow, Prudential's lead analyst.
Amy Gahran says that papers that use the same headline for an article in print and on their Web site are making a mistake. "Online headlines should be intuitive, not cryptic, vague, or leading," says Gahran. "A well-crafted online headline provides the reader with sufficient information and incentive to decide whether to click a link to read the story." NOTE FROM AAN: Descriptive headlines also optimize search-engine results.
