The paper and its crosstown rival the Seattle Weekly are giving competing explanations for the review's disappearance. The restaurant's co-owner tells the Weekly that The Stranger agreed to give him "a deal" on advertising and take the story off the website after he complained about the review when it ran in the Jan. 3 print edition. But Stranger publisher Tim Keck says the review wasn't fair, and a note on the Stranger's website says the review was taken down because the restaurant was visited within the first three months of its opening, which is against the paper's editorial policy. Keck tells the Weekly that the restaurant was given free ads, but it wasn't part of a deal to quiet the owner, but rather due to "production errors" in earlier ads the restaurant had run.

Continue ReadingWhy Did The Stranger Pull Negative Restaurant Review from Website?

That seems to be the opinion of Ed Avis, who looks at the challenges alt-weekly owners are facing in a piece for Quill, a magazine published by the Society for Professional Journalists. Not surprisingly, he says the biggest challenge to the business is the internet. He talks to the Austin Chronicle's Louis Black, Creative Loafing's Ben Eason, and Times Shamrock's Don Farley to see where they are at in relation to the internet, and, more importantly, where they're trying to go. Ultimately, Avis thinks that the challenge of the online market -- in concert with the aging of the original alt-weekly founders -- is what's behind the industry's increased consolidation. Northwestern University professor and Academy for Alternative Journalism director Charles Whitaker agrees. "I think the (older owners) have had difficulty adjusting and figuring out the new media landscape, particularly the internet and things like Craigslist," he says. "At the same time, a group of new owners said, 'We can do this as a chain. We still have our alternative press sensibilities, but by pooling our resources we can run these papers more efficiently than they had been run in the past.'"

Continue ReadingIs a ‘Generational Shift’ Afoot in the Alt-Weekly Industry?

Boom Jackson will be an annual glossy celebrating "urban living, working and creating in Jackson," Todd Stauffer writes in his publisher's note this week. The magazine will be a joint partnership between the JFP and Downtown Jackson Partners, the Hinds County Economic Development District, the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau, and others.

Continue ReadingJackson Free Press to Launch Glossy Magazine

Yesterday, the Press was proudly announcing its new sex column, "Lip Service" by Claudia Lonow. Today, editor David Blum says her first column will be her last, after it was revealed that some of the questions in the column were taken from Dan Savage's "Savage Love" columns. "It had been our understanding that the questions for her first column came from friends," Blum says. "She has told us she was unaware that using questions from Savage's column was a breach of journalism ethics. She has offered her resignation, and we've accepted it. We apologize to our readers, and to Dan Savage, for this error in judgment."

Continue ReadingNew York Press Fires New Sex Columnist for Stealing from Dan Savage

The creation of an ombudsman to oversee disputes over the Freedom of Information Act was the centerpiece of the FOIA reform bill signed into law last month. Cox News reports that the Open Government Act placed the ombudsman at the National Archives because of criticism leveled at the Justice Department for failing to address chronic FOIA backlogs. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) are speaking out against the administration's attempt to move the position to Justice. "Such a move is not only contrary to the express intent of the Congress, but it is also contrary to the very purpose of this legislation -- to ensure the timely and fair resolution of American's FOIA requests," Leahy said in a floor speech on Wednesday.

Continue ReadingWhite House Attempting to Move FOIA Ombud to Justice Dept.

"You made so many donations to our annual Give!Guide that we're just now finishing the tallies and making final deliveries of incentives," writes publisher Richard Meeker. The 2007 installment of the paper's annual fund-raising endeavor produced more than $518,000 for 49 nonprofits in the Portland area, more than doubling 2006's total of $228,000.

Continue ReadingWillamette Week Raises More Than Half a Million Dollars for Nonprofits