When asked about the future of his "Life in Hell" comic strip, which runs in a number of alt-weeklies but has been dropped by some recently, the Simpsons creator says alt-cartoonists are "at the bottom of the food chain," but that he remains hopeful about the industry. "It seems to me that if you have a publication with a strategy, with some enthusiasm, and some design sense, I think there is a way of keeping it alive," Groening tells The Onion's A.V. Club.

Continue ReadingMatt Groening Has Hope for Alt-Weeklies

The Ocala Star-Banner reported over the weekend that Ocala Magazine editor Heather Lee repeatedly lifted passages from other publications. The Houston Press reports that one such publication was itself: Lee stole a portion of a restaurant review by Robb Walsh, omitting only the words, "I know, I've been there" in a 63-word segment about eating meat. "You'd think someone could have come up with their own impressions of how to eat meat," Walsh says.

Continue ReadingHouston Press Plagiarized by Florida Magazine

AAN members are once again well-represented in the list of nominees for this year's James Beard Foundation Awards for Journalism. The finalists: L.A. Weekly's Pulitzer-prize winning critic Jonathan Gold in the Restaurant Reviews; Kristen Hinman of Riverfront Times in Newspaper Feature Writing Without Recipes; and the Chicago Reader's Mike Sula in Multimedia Food Journalism. Winners will be announced at a May 4 gala in New York.

Continue ReadingThree Alt-Weekly Writers Nominated for James Beard Awards

The alt-weekly has revenue of approximately $8.5 million a year, has not laid off anyone and has no plans to do so, New York Times columnist David Carr reports. He says that part of why the paper has been successful is because of its ties to the community. "The Chronicle is knit into civic and cultural life in Austin to a degree that may make other newspapers nervous," Carr writes.

Continue ReadingAustin Chronicle ‘Continues to Thrive’ by Staying Local