As the Augusta, Ga., alt-weekly celebrates its 20th anniversary, reporter Angel Cleary talks to "the only person, save founder David Vantrease, who has been around for the entire history" of the paper: senior music contributor Ed Turner. He discusses what Metro Spirit has meant to the music scene, how much the paper has grown over the years and how he got his column started. "I freelanced starting with the first issue of the Spirit," Turner says. "It was, of course, B.C. (before computers) and (get ready for this) I did not know how to type. And I barely do now! David and Lisa Smith (who was Spirit editor for the first five years or so) agreed to accept handwritten columns from me, which I would slip in the mail slot."
New Times ran a story in late June by "Joseph Rossi" on Reinalda de Souza, an Arizona faith healer who claimed to have killed Michael Jackson with a curse she learned in Brazil. Among the many exaggerated details in the piece is that de Souza had slit the throat of a 4½-month-old Rottweiler named Cerberus, drank his blood and left his lifeless carcass as part of a black magic ritual. This, New Times reports, led several people to call the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office to demand an investigation into the purported animal cruelty. Stephen Lemons, who actually wrote the piece, says that while this hoax didn't spark as much intense reaction as some of his earlier handiwork, "it was certainly a bunch of fun to write." He adds: "For the record, no animals were harmed in the making of the spoof."
Tony Diaz, who hosts KPFT's Nuestra Palabra program in Houston, says that the Houston Press' decision to publish Gustavo Arellano's syndicated column only on the web is like putting it "in the back of the bus." Diaz also says the Press doesn't understand how popular the column is among Hispanics, insinuating the alt-weekly is out-of-touch with that community -- an insinuation that editor Margaret Downing is having none of. "While I certainly understand the disappointment of some of our readers, to say that not carrying the column in print shows a lack of commitment to the Hispanic community is nothing but hyperbole," she says in a statement explaining the move.
A coalition of groups, led by the Bureau of National Affairs and including the Sunshine in Government Initiative (SGI), hope to change the practice of public officials insisting their remarks be off-the-record when addressing large audiences, the Washington Post reports. "Standing in front of 300 people and declaring your words to be 'off-the-record' is frustrating for reporters, but it's also silly," SGI coordinator Rick Blum says. "With Twitter, blogs and old-style email, the lobbyists, bloggers and other opinion-shapers in the audience will repeat your words a thousand different ways before you step off the podium. But a reporter who respects the traditional rules of the road can't report what you say to a broader audience."
New Media Hub reports that Creative Loafing has trained some reps to buy and resell ad networks for key local display advertisers. CL joins Village Voice Media, which launched its Voice Local Network in June, in selling local ad networks. VVM new media director Bill Jensen says the company's network focuses on advertisers that align with the papers' main areas of focus, which helps set it apart from other ad networks. "When you are looking for music or a restaurant, things that are at the core of our business, you are looking for a little bit more than text ads," Jensen says. "We have the best food critics in the world. Its different if you are looking for a plumber."
"In the three years since she started Deadline Hollywood Daily," Carr reports in today's New York Times, "her combination of old-school skills -- she is a relentless reporter -- and new-media immediacy has made her a must-click look into the ragingly insecure id of Hollywood." Finke recently sold the website, which she owned but Village Voice Media hosted, to Mail.com Media for an undisclosed sum.
With the All-Star Game taking place in St. Louis this week, the alt-weekly published a guide that included, among other things, home addresses of some current and former Cardinals baseball players. Some of the players were upset, and the team "felt it had no option but to instruct Major League Baseball to revoke the credentials they'd granted Riverfront Times to cover the All-Star Game, and to rescind our credentials to cover the team over the course of the regular season," editor Tom Finkel reports.
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