"It's been quite a ride at the helm of this wacky ship," writes publisher Stewart Sallo in this week's 15th-anniversary issue. "We've sailed through uncharted waters as the only weekly ever to succeed in Boulder, Colo., despite many serious obstacles throughout the years." Sallo notes that despite the "well-publicized woes of the newspaper industry," the Weekly is "riding an unprecedented wave of growth," which he largely chalks up to the purchase of the Colorado Daily by E.W. Scripps Co., which also owns another Boulder paper, the Camera. "Much like any other corporate-consolidation effort, this event created a more formidable, unified competitor for us, which caused the problem-solving minds at the Weekly to dig deeper in search of a strategy that would keep our ship sailing smoothly."

Continue ReadingBoulder Weekly Turns 15, Prints Biggest Issue Ever

The Press is partnering with The Independent "to offer advertisers a two-paper deal that officials at the free weeklies tout as an 'all Island' option," Newsday reports. The deal was hatched a few months ago during a meeting of the papers' publishers and key officials to discuss a "strategic alliance," according to Michael Castonguay, chief financial officer of the Long Island Press. "It's an advertising-marketing partnership that we hope will expand as we continue to grow on Long Island," he says. According to Newsday, the Press has a circulation of more than 97,000, and the Independent has a circulation of about 20,000.

Continue ReadingLong Island Press Partners with Another Weekly for Ad Sales

CL's Atlanta editor Ken Edelstein reports that he laid off two editorial staffers on Monday: Senior editor Scott Freeman and senior writer David Lee Simmons. In addition, the St. Petersburg Times reports that CL's Tampa paper has let go of Lance Goldenberg, who'd been a freelance film critic for the paper for 19 years. In his statement, Tampa editor David Warner said that the hole in film coverage will be filled with staff writers from CL's newly acquired papers in Chicago and Washington.

Continue ReadingCreative Loafing Lays Off Two Staffers and One Freelance Critic

For the past 56 weeks, staff cartoonist Kenny Be has studied the 56 delegations headed to Denver for the Democratic National Convention, and shared his research results in a weekly cartoon called "Delegating Denver." With the convention just around the corner (Aug. 25-28), the cartoons are now collected in a single slideshow on Westword's site. Editor Patricia Calhoun says AAN-member papers are free to excerpt parts of the cartoon in print or link to it online, accompanied by their own commentary. In addition, the Sacramento News & Review has made available free of charge to AAN members a piece from Tom Hayden on what to expect from Denver, and the significance of it all for the future of the country. For more details on that piece, which is available today, email Cosmo Garvin at cosmog (at) newsreview.com

Continue ReadingWestword Cartoonist Unveils ’56 Faces of the Democratic Convention’

AAN recently created a new listserv for editors to discuss coverage of the 2008 elections. To join listservs for which they are eligible, AAN members need only login to AAN.org and click on the "Listserv Registrations" link in the My AAN section on the right side of the page.

Continue Reading‘Election Coverage’ Listserv Launches

A new study on digital pricing by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Bain & Company found that ad networks handled 30 percent of major web publishers' sales in 2007 compared to just 5 percent the prior year, Online Media Daily reports. The study concludes that this trend could negatively impact overall web revenue, since CPMs earned through ad networks are usually a fraction the going rates for display inventory sold directly by major publishers.

Continue ReadingStudy Finds Growing Reliance On Ad Networks