The Reader's Mike Sula wrote a story a few weeks ago about a pair of suburban stay-at-home dads who make and sell bacon and sausage without having proper USDA certification. This week, a restaurant that was mentioned in the piece was visited by inspectors from the Illinois Department of Agriculture, who confiscated 80 pounds of bacon that lacked a mark of inspection and some headcheese that had been inspected only by Wisconsin officials. The inspectors say their actions were prompted by the Reader's article. Meanwhile, the dads profiled in the original piece say they are ceasing operations until they can make their company "legally operational." Sula tallies up the score: "Nanny State: 2 Real food: 0." MORE from the Chicago Tribune.
AAN has joined 12 other media organizations in filing a friend-of-the-court brief that supports Bloomberg LP reporters who are trying to access public records related to last year's financial bailout. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System argues that the records are exempt from disclosure under FOIA's exemption 4, which protects confidential financial information from disclosure. But the media organizations say the board hasn't met the burden of showing that disclosure is likely to cause substantial competitive harm.
The 2010 AltWeekly Awards is now accepting entries. The contest website opened this morning and will close on the contest deadline, Monday, Feb. 8, 2010 at 11 pm (EST).
In a report on the newspaper industry's well-publicized woes, the New Orleans alt-weekly points out that "2009 has been a relatively good year for Gambit and many other locally owned, locally focused newspapers." The paper reports it avoided layoffs by decreasing its newsprint size and taking other cost-cutting measures and says it should fare well as the issues in the industry continue to shake out: "In the long run, the newspapers that survive will be those that have a special bond with their readers -- and we count ourselves among them."
The professed atheism of Cecil Bothwell, a former staff writer at the Mountain XPress who was elected to the Asheville City Council last month, is becoming an issue in North Carolina. Bothwell is facing a challenge that stems from an odd clause in the state's constitution, which bars politicians who deny the existence of God from holding office. Bothwell's opponents are considering a lawsuit over his being allowed to take office (he affirmed the oath of office last week), even though federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution. Meanwhile, the case has gone nationwide, with the Associated Press, the Huffington Post and others weighing in. Last night, Bothwell appeared on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show.
On Friday, Jan. 29 from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, the East Bay Express will host a tour of its office in Oakland before the AAN West conference gets rolling later that day, walking attendees through the paper's production process as a way to start a discussion about creating an accurate and efficient operation.
