On Friday afternoon, a Missouri judge ordered The Pitch and the Kansas City Star to purge online stories about the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (BPU) that were based on a confidential letter written by BPU's attorney. Judge Kelly Moorehouse's ruling (PDF file) states that the letter is "privileged legal communication," and also barred the papers from publishing information contained in the confidential document or "otherwise referring to it in any public medium." Attorneys for The Pitch have requested an emergency hearing to settle the matter. "This judge made a serious error," says Steve Suskin, legal counsel for the Pitch's parent company, Village Voice Media. "The injunction so clearly violates the First Amendment that we have no choice but to fight for these fundamental principles in the appellate courts." (The Pitch's original story is still available online in a Google cache.)
Despite earlier reports that Blum was fired as a result of comments he made at a staff meeting last week, Voice spokesperson Maggie Shnayerson tells AP that the meeting was only a "catalyst" for the editor's dismissal. "It was not a decision that was reached in any kind of knee-jerk way," says Shnayerson. Blum's response to concerns about racial diversity that were raised during the meeting may have offended some people, Voice staff writer Wayne Barrett confirms, but everyone seems to agree that his remarks weren't a firing offense. "There were disagreements about the amount of emphasis he had given so far to hiring minorities," an unnamed staffer tells the New York Times. "There was nothing said in that meeting by David Blum that was racist."
Jenny Yuen, a photographer for the Georgia Straight, is "one of four twentysomething gal pals" in Susan Lyons' "Awesome Foursome" series, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix reports in a feature on successful romance novelists. Lyons' website summarizes the plot of Hot in Here, the series' second installment: "Journalist Jenny Yuen lands a very steamy assignment: cover a firefighter calendar competition. Her personal favorite? Mr. February. Also known as Scott Jackman. Also known as hot, hotter, hottest!"
Maine Community Publications, a subsidiary of the Seattle Times Company, recently announced the launch of The Maine Switch, a "free lifestyle weekly targeted to adults ages 25-45 years old," according to a press release. "Short and sweet is the soul of this magazine," says a blog entry on Switch's MySpace page. "You won't find long, boring reports in Switch, that's not our style. Instead we love colorful photos, funky facts and quirky pieces." The Seattle Times Company also owns Maine's large daily, the Portland Press Herald, which has twice before launched similar products with no success, the Portland Phoenix reports.
At a Friday afternoon meeting, Village Voice staffers were told that Blum was "no longer the editor of the paper" as a result of unspecified comments he made that were "unacceptable," according to Gawker. Radar reports that Bill Jensen, director of Web and digital operations for Village Voice Media, has been named interim editor.
The Atlanta alt-weekly's story on the Stormfront White Nationalist Community web forum, "A Kinder, Gentler Racism," led to a landslide of hateful and nasty comments on the paper's website. The avalanche may have been triggered by a post on the Vanguard News Network Forum encouraging "everyone here [to] take a minute, breeze through the article and comment on the Creative Loafing site about it." Despite charges of censorship leveled by the white nationalists, Web Editor Lea Holland says that only one comment has been deleted, "because the link was dead." The incident highlights the balancing act papers perform while monitoring their sites' comments. "While we all have mixed feelings about this, I think ultimately our readers and the public good are better served by letting these guys show who they are," Editor Ken Edelstein tells AAN News. "I have enough faith in our readers to know that the overwhelming majority will be repulsed by what they see -- but also informed at the same time."
AAN members are well-represented in the 2006 awards given out by the Education Writers Association, with a near-sweep of "Feature, News Feature or Issue Package" for papers under 100,000 circulation. In that category, Todd Spivak of the Houston Press took home First Place for "Cut Short," while Special Citations were awarded to Willamette Week's Beth Slovic for "Illegal Scholar," the Houston Press' Margaret Downing for "Opt In, Opt Out," and New Times Broward-Palm Beach's Kelly Cramer for "FCAT Scratch Fever." Kristen Hinman of Riverfront Times received a First Place award in the "Investigative Reporting" category for her Vashon High School Series.
The best way to find out is to participate in our annual Financial Standards survey, a confidential benchmarking study that many AAN publishers consider the most important benefit the association offers to its members. AAN financial consultant Seija Goldstein will once again compile the survey and present the results -- to participants only -- at the annual convention, which will be held in Portland June 14-16. The deadline for participation is Monday, April 2. For more information on the survey, please contact the AAN office.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-AZ, who had informed colleagues that he planned to introduce an amendment to the Act that would have created the equivalent of the U.S. version of the British Official Secrets Act, reversed course yesterday, according to Cox Newspapers' Washington Bureau. Although the original amendment circulated by Kyl would have criminalized the communication or publication of any classified information "concerning efforts by the United States to identify, investigate, or prevent terrorist activity," his spokesperson now says the Senator's intentions were widely misunderstood. "It was (an overly broad) draft, only a draft and slightly premature on some people's part to say this was the final amendment," he says. A Capitol Hill newspaper credits "pushback" by the Sunshine in Government Initiative, of which AAN is a member, with the senator's change of heart.
A Feb. 23 Observer investigation detailing a 2005 sex abuse scandal and subsequent coverup at a youth correctional facility in West Texas led to the recent resignations of a charter school principal and the executive leadership of the Texas Youth Commission, the oversight authority for youth correctional facilities, according to the Odessa American. Meanwhile, the Observer reports on its blog that the state legislature is also getting involved, with the Senate voting Wednesday to begin the process of appointing a conservator to oversee the agency while its board and staff executives are replaced.
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