The Weekly's eighth annual Cover Art Auction, which took place this Wednesday, was its most successful yet, grossing more than $15,000. "Once we've paid the bill for framing every piece, we expect to put more than $12,000 into Boise Weekly's private art grant, for which any local artist or organization is eligible to apply," editor Rachael Daigle writes. "That's roughly $800 more than we've ever put back into the art community."

Continue ReadingBoise Weekly Cover Auction Nets Record Proceeds

Editor Kevin Hoffman and art director Nick Vlcek talk to the Society of Publication Designers about this week's cover design, which uses Sarah Palin's Going Rogue as source material for a cover story (titled "Going Crazy") on Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. As we noted yesterday, Hoffman had said it was the first time in 30 years the paper had gone out without a logo on the cover; a decision that he and Vlcek say was a pretty easy one to come by. "We realized very quickly that in order to make the cover look as much like the book as possible, that we would have to forgo our logo," Hoffman says. "But it was worth it for the impact it would have on our readers."

At left, City Pages' 11/18 cover; at right, Sarah Palin's book cover.

Continue ReadingMore on City Pages’ Bachmann/Palin Mash-Up Cover

The South Florida alt-weekly ran a lengthy cover story this week on the problems facing South Florida's newspapers, and decided that it would only be fair to report on its own struggles as well. Reporter Lisa Rab says that the New Times newsroom staff has shrunk by four (to 13) and its circulation has dropped from around 80,000 to 54,500 over "the past couple of years." She also talks to Village Voice Media president and chief operating officer Scott Tobias, who says there are no plans afoot to make the paper online-only, to sell it or to merge its operations with its sister paper to the south, Miami New Times.

Continue ReadingHow’s New Times Broward-Palm Beach Doing?

Andrew Kiraly has taken to Twitter to poke fun at Nevada politicians like Sen. John Ensign and Gov. Jim Gibbons, in what he calls "a text version of an editorial cartoon." Kiraly's fake account for Ensign, who admitted to having an affair this summer, drew the attention of a staffer for the senator, who called the content "vulgar," "offensive" and "deceptive." That account has been shut down by Twitter, but Kiraly has launched a new one that is more clearly labeled as parody. The most recent entry from SenatorEnsign2: "I advise the women of America NOT to postpone breast exams. Be responsible and proactive. Take your health into my own hands."

Continue ReadingLas Vegas CityLife Staffer Lampoons Pols with Fake Twitter Accounts

Like several other alt-weeklies, Creative Loafing (Tampa) has put together a holiday auction to raise funds for a local nonprofit, but with a new twist: Cover space, a news story and a restaurant review in the paper are among the items up for bid. "This is our way of saying 'This is not how we do business,'" editor David Warner tells the St. Petersburg Times. "Just this once, you'll see what you get if our content actually is for sale. It's ironic, unchartered (sic) territory."

Continue ReadingCreative Loafing (Tampa) Sells Cover, Editorial Space in Holiday Auction

Drex Heikes, the veteran journalist who came to the Weekly from the Las Vegas Sun this summer, tells the USC Annenberg publication Neon Tommy that he was brought in specifically to beef up the paper's reporting, and that's exactly what he will do. "We're pushing things that are very deeply reported," he says. "We want good, hard-nosed investigative work." Heikes acknowledges that the Weekly has seen some tough times in the past few years, but says he remains confident in the paper's future, in part because he's been told by VVM executive editor Michael Lacey that there won't be any more newsroom contractions (as the story notes, the Weekly is actually hiring again). "I would say, God willing, the place is going to grow and we can be judged on where we are a year from now or two years from now," Heikes says. NOTE: The Weekly points out that the Neon Tommy story has an as-of-yet uncorrected error -- the paper has five full-time editors, not three.

Continue ReadingNew L.A. Weekly Editor Talks About The Paper’s Future

Yesterday we told you about the jury's decision in a case brought against a trio of doctors, in which the plaintiff claimed that the plastic surgeons provided before-and-after photographs of her torso to the Riverfront Times without her permission. The story we linked to noted that one of the doctors testified that the photo miscue wasn't his fault, since Times reporter Kristen Hinman had promised not to use the photos and to let him review the 2006 story before publication (The paper, which denied the doctor's claims, was not named in the suit.) That story, however, didn't explain that Hinman wasn't allowed to testify in the jury's presence, due to what Times editor Tom Finkel calls a "bizarre" mid-trial ruling that said doing so would constitute "unfair surprise" and deprive the doctors of a fair trial. The irony, of course, is that the doctor in question was allowed to testify in front of jurors, and he "fed the jury two baldfaced lies" about the alt-weekly, Finkel writes.

Continue ReadingIn Photo Case, Writer Wasn’t Allowed to Testify in Jury’s Presence