The first thing you notice when you land on Orlando Weekly's home page these days is an audio stream of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" -- a message the paper is clearly taking to heart. In a story nearing 5,000 words published late yesterday, the alt-weekly comes out swinging at the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI), which arrested three of its employees on Friday on charges of deriving proceeds from prostitution and aiding and abetting prostitution. (The MBI also got a grand jury indictment for criminal racketeering against the paper.) The Weekly says that the arrests were simply retaliation for publishing critical stories about the agency, and as proof points to a host of other publications that carry similar ads, yet have not been targeted by the MBI. "The MBI is an inept, inefficient police organization, answerable to no one," the paper writes. "And if you dare confront the agency on their appalling record, they will try to put you out of business."
As we reported late on Friday, all charges against Phoenix New Times have been dropped. The paper and its executives faced charges for publishing Sheriff Joe Arpaio's home address on the internet and for disclosing grand jury information. Now the Arizona Republic is reporting that the State Bar Association has launched an internal investigation into Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik, in part for their actions in the New Times case. In addition, attorneys for Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., which publishes the Republic, have filed a motion to unseal all transcripts and court filings related to the case. Lastly, New Times reports that the disorderly conduct charge that reporter Ray Stern received last week for looking at public documents has not been dismissed.
"Orlando Weekly believes these arrests are an outrageous abuse of process and an attempt to censor the First Amendment rights of a newspaper that has reported critically on the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation," publisher Rick Schreiber says in a statement. Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell seems to agree. "You'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical about the MBI's arrest of three staffers," he says, noting that the Weekly has "been all over the MBI like fleas on a dog in recent years." He continues: "And yet, in our story today, MBI director Bill Lutz seemed to deny that his department had a grudge against the paper. If that's what he's saying, it's a crock." For more coverage of the arrests, and links to past Weekly coverage of the MBI, check out the paper's blog.
Online advertising is expected to generate more than $20 billion in revenue this year, but questions remains about how much clashing traffic figures will hold the market back, the New York Times reports. Visitor measurements being taken by large online publishers are coming in much higher than the numbers provided by third-party firms like ComScore and Nielsen/NetRatings. The discrepancies are caused by a number of factors, including the use of raw server data (by publishers) vs. extrapolating audience figures based on panel samplings (by third parties). In addition, while the "impression" has largely become the accepted metric used to measure an online audience -- and set ad rates -- each company uses a different methodology to calculate that number, according to the Times. "It's hugely frustrating," the president for media at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia says about the clashing numbers. "It's one of the barriers preventing us from really moving forward."
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