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Facing rising rents and the end of their Sacramento paper's lease, News & Review owners Jeff vonKaenel and Deborah Redmond bought a shuttered commercial building. At the prodding of their teenage daughter and Phil Angelides, former California State Treasurer and last year's unsuccessful Democratic nominee for Governor, the couple are undertaking a green renovation of their new property. The $1.4 million project is scheduled to be complete in the fall of 2008, according to the News & Review. Since the paper will be figuring out much of the green engineering itself, it has given Sena Christian the task of writing a weekly column about the renovation for the next year. "Sure, we want a nice building. But we want something else, too," she writes. "We want to spur the green-building movement in Sacramento. By reporting on local individuals, companies and institutions leading the way, we want to up the ante, ultimately speeding up innovation in the realms of clean technology, energy efficiency and renewable energy."

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly is Turning its New Building ‘Green’ — and Writing About It

Kamikaze was suspended indefinitely from the local talk radio program the Kim Wade Show this week for comments he made in a recent Jackson Free Press column, the paper reports. "Freedom of speech no longer exists in this country," Kamikaze says. "I don't know if I'm being singled out but its unfortunate that the station caved to some random callers who disagreed with my viewpoints." As a rebuttal, Kamikaze, who is also a hip-hop artist, has recorded a new song, "Take Me Away," which he calls an "open letter" to George W. Bush. It was posted on his MySpace page today.

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Columnist Taken Off Radio Show for Anti-Bush Comments

The city mag publisher "didn't do everything perfectly, but there was a ton of stuff it did that was genius," Jeff Lawrence tells Business Week. Metrocorp, which also owns Boston magazine, bought a majority interest in the Dig in 2004, and Lawrence bought the paper back earlier this year. After watching how the bigger company spun out new revenue streams from its numerous brands, Lawrence is now thinking about how to introduce new ventures like phone-based Web content, a quarterly arts publication, Boston travel and entertainment guides for the Gen Y set, and alternative newspapers in other New England towns, all under the Weekly Dig brand. "I had access to their executive meetings and knowledge and history," Lawrence says. "Entrepreneurs don't often get that kind of opportunity."

Continue ReadingWeekly Dig’s Founder on What He Learned from Metrocorp

"MusicfestNW is that special time of year when Portland adopts the best of music everywhere and gives it a home," music editor Amy McCullough writes in an introduction to the paper's guide to the annual festival. The four days of MusicfestNW will feature over 170 sets in 16 venues, ranging "from melodic indie rock icons Spoon and Rilo Kiley to alternative hip-hop heroes Aesop Rock and the Clipse to psychedelic music legend Roky Erickson & the Explosives," Corey duBrowa writes in the Oregonian.

Continue ReadingWillamette Week’s Musicfest NW Kicks Off Tomorrow