Landmark Communications, which owns those two Virginia AAN member papers, has hired JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers to "to assist in exploring strategic alternatives, including the possible sale of the company's businesses," Landmark's vice chairman tells the Roanoke Times. The company's 2006 sales figures were $1.75 billion, and it employs about 12,000 people at more than 100 publications and other media properties including The Weather Channel, the Times reports.
"Sandy was fresh from Texas, a tiny blonde in even tinier hot pants, with a big personality," the current Westword editor says of Widener, who she first met at Cornell in the '70s. Widener, who died with her husband and one of her daughters in a car accident late last month, went on to co-found the Denver alt-weekly with Calhoun and Rob Simon. "With each reminiscence," Calhoun says, "I keep wanting to reach for the phone to call Sandy, to utter a few words and be rewarded with a shriek. I'll get several numerals into the call before I suddenly remember that she's gone." There will be a service for Sandy, her husband John, and their daughter Chase in a few weeks in Denver, when daughter Katy, who was spared in the accident, is well enough to attend. In the meantime, a memorial site has been set up at johnsandychase.muchloved.com.
In crowning her as such, the New York Observer thanks the L.A. Weekly columnist "for reminding us that all good journalism comes, first and foremost, from obsession." Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily site has become the go-to source for coverage of the writers' strike, and has made this a defining moment in her career. "The biggest entertainment story of the year has also turned into the biggest story of Ms. Finke's career," the Observer reports. "She's demonstrated that one determined reporter -- with none of the support or backing of a media outfit, but also none of the entangling alliances -- can, in fact, beat the big guys at their own game."
On Monday, George Bush signed into law the first revision of the Freedom of Information Act in a decade, the AP reports. The legislation, which cleared Congress last month, creates a system for the media and public to track the status of their FOIA requests. It also establishes a hotline service for all federal agencies to deal with problems and an ombudsman. Under the new law, federal agencies would be required to meet a 20-day deadline for responding to FOIA requests.
Just after midnight on Dec. 29, graphic designer Dennis Ho was shot in the foot in an apparent robbery attempt. He didn't need surgery, lost no toes, and will return to work Jan. 9. Ho recounts his experience today in a blog post. "To have to use my own hands to inspect the rest of my body for gunshot wounds while knowing that there was a real possibility they were there ... that was a feeling more terrifying than anything I've ever experienced," he writes. "I will never -- never -- forget that feeling."
