C.B. "Chick" Squire, who had been working with the weekly since the mid-1990s, died on Jan. 4 of natural causes. He was 88 years old. "Chick was the last of the old guard who stood by and believed in this publication," writes XPress publisher Jeff Fobes, "all the way from its inception as Green Line many years ago to the current weekly print and online avatars of Mountain Xpress." More from the News & Observer.
In a 52-page complaint to be filed with the Federal Trade Commission today, the Center for Digital Democracy and U.S. Public Interest Research Group allege that emerging mobile marketing shops are using "unfair and deceptive" behavioral targeting strategies. The groups are asking the FTC to probe how mobile ad companies deploy techniques like behavioral targeting and geo-targeting. The complaint also asks the FTC to force the companies to notify consumers about how their data is used, and seek explicit consent to its collection.
Knute Berger, who edited the Weekly for nearly 15 years before leaving in July 2006, is releasing Pugetopolis: A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice this month. Many of the essays in the book, which covers the region's identity, first ran as columns in the Weekly. "To me the book has been my sort of ongoing personal exploration to be a Seattleite," Berger tells the Seattle Times. "I hope that people will read it and just sort of enjoy thinking about our identity."
Kim A. Mac Leod of Regional Media Advisors and Seija Goldstein of Seija Goldstein Associates recently interviewed more than 60 regional publishers of every stripe, from alt-weeklies to business journals to city magazines, to find out what they are doing to generate revenue and reduce expenses. The results, broken down into 12 categories, are now available on the Regional Media Advisors website.
"Since it's printed in Yakima, a semi truck filled with tens of thousands of copies of The Stranger is sitting on the other side of the 10-feet-deep body of water that used to be known as I-5," editor Christopher Frizzelle wrote last Thursday. The alt-weekly reprinted the entire issue at the Seattle Times printing facility and distributed it a little late. "Enjoy this week's paper," Frizzelle wrote. "It was very expensive."
"Boulder Weekly and our brother and sister alt-weeklies," Stewart Sallo writes, "are the next generation in the evolution of the newspaper." He notes that for the Weekly, "the past two years have been a watershed period for our organization, with unprecedented growth in readership and revenue, despite the unfavorable economic conditions we have faced."
A San Francisco chiropractor and his former patient, Christopher Norberg, have settled a libel lawsuit arising out of a bad review that Norberg posted on Yelp.com. Online Media Daily reports that this was likely the first case in which a Yelp.com user was sued for defamation for posting a bad review.
In an interview with New England Ethnic News, Brad Mindich explains why, when other media companies are slashing staff, he thought buying Boston's El Planeta newspaper was a good move. "This is a good niche product that expands what we do," he says, adding that the new acquisition will retain complete editorial control but will share content with the group's other titles when it makes sense. When asked why Phoenix Media chose El Planeta over other Spanish-language publications, Mindich says: "If you look at the other Hispanic newspapers published in this area, with all due respect, they are not very good." That comment has raised the ire of said publications.
