"My mother back in Kansas City likes to tell her friends that I work at the Washington Post, because I think she's embarrassed about alternative newspapers," says Tim Carman, who writes the Young & Hungry column for City Paper. He tells Cork & Knife that working with the award-winning critic Robb Walsh at the Houston Press earlier this decade (when Carman was managing editor) jump-started his desire to "do something with food," but his bum knee prevented him from actually working in a restaurant. He landed the City Paper gig ("I didn't think I had a shot," he says), and now eats in restaurants close to twice a day. "Your dining routine is an endless search for the new and interesting," he says when asked about the toughest part of his job. "Sometimes, I (or my wife, Carrie, god bless her) would just like to relax and unwind in an old familiar place."

Continue ReadingWashington City Paper’s Food Writer Talks Shop

"Driven by marketing and delivery costs and pressure from advertisers, many papers have decided certain readers are not worth the expense involved in finding, serving and keeping them," the New York Times reports. As ad buyers have become more cost-conscious and have succeeded to some extent in narrow targeting with online ads, they've expressed less interest in reaching the reader who doesn't match a certain profile. Some major daily papers have responded by curtailing advertising, cold-calling, and offering promotional discounts, while others are cutting back and refining their geographic reach, the Times reports.

Continue ReadingSome Big Dailies Are Emphasizing Circ Quality, Not Quantity

"We changed our logo (for the sixth time in our almost 33 years of existence), emphasizing WW rather than Willamette Week," says editor Mark Zusman. The alt-weekly also reduced the paper's height by an inch, changed the typeface, and created a new section "on all matters of living in Portland."

Continue ReadingWillamette Week Unveils Redesign & New Logo