In an interview promoting his new book, a collection from his long-running Voice column, Michael Musto says that in his "billions of years" at the paper, he has been censored only once, for a JonBenet joke that even he agrees was way off-base. "Otherwise, I've been given free reign to overdo, overemote, overstate and be overjoyed," the popular gossip columnist tells the New York Blade. "I’m extremely spoiled to have been coddled, nurtured, liberated and allowed to carry on like a free range chicken."
Richard Diefenbach read Gustavo Arellano's syndicated column for the first time in the Weekly Alibi, while on vacation in Albuquerque. He was so enthused with the column -- which that week addressed readers' questions about "the Mexican love affair with chicken and similarities between Mexicans and the Irish," according to Arellano -- that when he returned to work in his hometown of Newport, Ore., he printed a copy and gave it to a Mexican-American co-worker. The following day Diefenbach was suspended from work for five days without pay, accused of racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
That was the question Oklahoma Gazette Editor Rob Collins recently asked editors on an AAN listserv in preparation for last week's cover story kicking off the paper's coverage of the state's centennial. Oklahoma! the musical came in first and the Dust Bowl placed third. See editors' complete responses by downloading this PDF document.
The Journal's Web site handles breaking news, while the the newly redesigned print edition unveiled last week is devoted to context and analysis, says Los Angeles Times media reporter Tim Rutten. According to Rutten, the Journal's makeover represents a "good first look at what a rational division of labor will look like as newspapers move toward a future in which they simultaneously connect with their readers online and in print."
The Morning Edition is the latest to weigh in on the battle for music-poll supremacy between The Village Voice's 32-year-old "world series for smarty-pants people," and Gawker Media's upstart Jackin' Pop, which was released Friday. NPR reports that several prominent critics, including former Voice contributor Ann Powers and The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones, won't be voting in this year's Pazz and Jop, which will be released early next month.
According to a Citigroup analyst, the price for 30-lb newsprint in the U.S. is now $660 per tonne, which is down $15 per tonne since September. However, the same analyst believes the rate of decline of U.S. newsprint consumption "has stabilized," which may lead to "stable-to-rising prices" in the coming months.
Cincinnati CityBeat News Editor Greg Flannery was one of seven people arrested for criminal trespassing on Sept. 27 when they protested the Iraq War by conducting a sit-in in U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot's Cincinnati office. Now he's asking the former Secretary of Defense to take the stand in his case. "I think testimony about the war that Rumsfeld can offer is essential to our defense, which is that we were breaking the law to stop a much more serious crime," Flannery tells the Cincinnati Post. The trial is set for Jan. 22.
Beginning with the March issue, Knute "Skip" Berger will write a monthly column and serve as editor-at-large for Seattle magazine, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Berger left the Seattle Weekly this past summer after serving for 15 years as an editor at the company.
