Kirk MacDonald, who was also COO of Creative Loafing Inc., is leaving the company to rejoin the Denver Newspaper Agency, which controls the business operations of the Denver Post, as executive vice president for sales, marketing, and digital sales. MacDonald, who joined the Reader in September 2008, says CL CEO Ben Eason will take over the COO duties temporarily, and that a new publisher will be named for the Reader.

Continue ReadingChicago Reader Publisher Steps Down

Publicola was started in January by Josh Feit, a former news editor of The Stranger, to cover state and local politics in a time where fewer reporters are ensconced in state houses across the country. Feit has attracted some "significant" money, and recently hired another Stranger alum, Erica Barnett, as a full-time staff reporter.

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Alums Come Together at Seattle News Website

Drex Heikes, who served the Los Angeles Times for 18 years as the Sunday magazine's editor and foreign affairs editor in the paper's Washington bureau, has been named L.A. Weekly's next editor. He will start in August. The position will allow a homecoming of sorts for Heikes: He left L.A. in 2005 to work at the Las Vegas Sun, which recently won a Public Service Pulitzer for an investigation he assigned and edited. "Village Voice Media publishes vital newspapers because it has upheld the vision of its founding editor, Mike Lacey," Heikes says. "Mike is a reporter at heart. His mission has never wavered. First you report, and you report hard. Then you write -- and you do it as a storyteller."

Continue ReadingLongtime Los Angeles Journo Coming Home to Edit L.A. Weekly

Salt Lake City Weekly won a total of 19 awards in the Utah Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists' annual awards on June 12. The Weekly's Stephen Dark was named Best Newspaper Reporter (his colleague Ted McDonough received an honorable mention in the same category). "Dark had the most diverse and interesting subject matter," the judges wrote. "His ability to tell a story in a clean and compelling manner also stood out." The alt-weekly also won first-place awards for Consumer Reporting, Government Reporting and Military Reporting.

Continue ReadingSalt Lake City Weekly Wins State Awards, Including Best Reporter

Of the five newspapers that applied for AAN membership this year, the Membership Committee is recommending that two be voted into the association: See Magazine and Inland Empire Weekly. The committee is also recommending that six current members who've experienced ownership changes be reaffirmed. AAN members will vote on these applications, as well as other matters, at Saturday afternoon's Annual Meeting. In addition, the Membership Committee is recommending that AAN take a look at allowing only-online publications to join the association. UPDATE (3:17 PM EST): The membership committee's report as originally uploaded was incorrect when it said that See's owner, Great West Newspapers, was "the largest" media chain in Canada. It's a large company, but not the largest in the country. The document in the resource library has been updated with the correct information.

Continue ReadingMembership Committee Recommends Two Papers for Admission to AAN