Last week, we told you about the collection of Village Voice covers posted in Facebook galleries by Robert Newman Design. Over the weekend, he added some even older covers from the 70s and 80s, featuring the work of design luminaries like Milton Glaser, George Delmerico and Michael Grossman. The New York Times' David Carr says "it's a walk down memory lane for people who otherwise might have some trouble remembering those good old days."

Continue ReadingRobert Newman Goes a Little Deeper into Village Voice Cover Archive

The series debuts here on AAN.org this Friday, Sept. 25, with investigative reporting winner John Dickerson discussing his Phoenix New Times series "Prescription for Disaster" with New Times managing editor Amy Silverman. The conversation, which will begin at 3 pm EST, will be moderated by Folio Weekly editor Anne Schindler.

Continue ReadingAAN Begins Live Chat Series With 2009 AltWeekly Award Winners

Promo materials say The Very Silly Mayor uses "humor and social commentary to teach children to trust their own judgment, even if other people might disagree with their views or make fun of them." The book, which is currently available in stores and at web retailers, is the product of Tom Tomorrow's own experience as a parent. "As the parent of a small child, you end up reading a lot of fairly awful story books at bedtime, and as someone whose livelihood is derived from a certain facility at combining words and pictures, the lure of trying to do better was eventually too strong to resist," he explained on his blog earlier this year. You can read more about the book at the Very Silly Mayor website.

Continue ReadingTom Tomorrow Pens His First Children’s Book

After reading the Weekly's Sept. 1 profile of Eugene and Yukiko Gatlin, former patients of Group Health who went bankrupt paying its insurance premiums, the "boutique primary care provider" Qliance contacted the paper with an offer to help. The company, which doesn't work through insurance but charges patients a flat monthly fee for primary care at one of its clinics, will waive the fee for the Gatlins until they can afford it at some point down the line. "Miracles do happen," Eugene Gatlin says, though he tells the Weekly he's still concerned about the cost of the couple's medications.

Continue ReadingSeattle Weekly Story Leads to Free Health Care for Couple in Need

Miami New Times and New Times Broward-Palm Beach each won eight total awards in the Florida Press Club's 2009 Excellence in Journalism contest. Miami took home first-place honors in the General News, Light Feature Writing, Minority News and Religion Writing categories, while Broward placed first in the Blog Writing, Criticism, Health Writing and Sports Feature Writing categories. However, blog winner Bob Norman points out that the press club put all of the alt-weeklies' nonblog entries in Class D, the lowest category in the contest. "The last time they did this a few years ago, we refused to accept our awards (yeah, we're arrogant like that)," Norman writes. "Now they've gone off and done it again. We've been judged over the years in Category A, where we belong, all the way down to D. It's an issue that needs to be ironed out beforehand."

Continue ReadingTwo Florida Alts Nab 16 State Press Awards

Nashville-based SouthComm purchased the Scene from Village Voice Media last month, and has swiftly been making changes. Former managing editor and longtime staffer Jim Ridley has taken over as editor, and the paper rolled out a glossy look this week. In addition, SouthComm has brought all editorial staffers of its Nashville properties (it owns The City Paper, NashvillePost.com and a handful of smaller print publications) under one roof, and done the same -- in a different building -- for business-side staff. Scene writer Bruce Barry says Nashville is "the alpha test" of SouthComm's publishing theory, which involves owning a unique blend of niche publications in a single market. Barry also points out that many SouthComm higher-ups are "very conservative" and wonders how that might affect the alt-weekly going forward.

Continue ReadingNew Owners Bring Changes to Nashville Scene