On the heels of yesterday's story that the alt-weekly is reportedly on the market for $25 million, unnamed "informed observers" tell the Philadelphia Daily News that Philadelphia Media Holdings (PMH) is among the bidders. PMH owns both the Daily News and Philly's other daily, the Inquirer. "All I can say is no comment," PMH CEO Brian Tierney says.
As we reported earlier this month, the alt-weekly's story on Anna Nicole Smith's "secret Native American love child" was indeed fake. Stephen Lemons, who wrote the story, tallies up the carnage this week, reporting that CBS News, Gawker and the New Zealand Herald were among the outlets that fell for it. And while the paper was offered $500,000 for photos of the non-existent baby boy at one point, Lemons notes that many of the paper's regular readers knew it was a hoax all along.
As circulation and revenue from print advertising both continue to drop, many analysts are predicting a major shift over the next decade in how newspapers do business, the Times reports. The one bright spot in the newspaper industry is a jump in online ad spending, but it still accounts for only 5.4 percent of all newspaper ad expenditures, according to the Newspaper Association of America. "This is a time of wrenching change and chaos," a media analyst at Jupiter Research says. "All of our assumptions about newspapers are going to be changed. The format, the business model, the organization of newspapers have outlived their usefulness."
That's what Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Michael Klein says he's heard from unnamed "publishing sources around town." His sources tell him that Review Publishing LP, the parent company of the alt-weekly, is asking $25 million for the paper and signing confidentiality statements with prospects. While neither Review President Anthony Clifton nor Vice President Jim Stokes responded to Klein's requests for comment, the Weekly's editor says he's heard nothing about a sale. "It would be a shock to me," Tim Whitaker says.
Nathan Comp took home a first-place award for Feature Writing in the Club's annual Excellence in Journalism contest, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. The Madison alt-weekly's website received two second-place awards in the contest.
Zac Crain's quixotic quest to become Mayor of Dallas looks like it may be over. The former Observer music editor came up about 50 valid signatures short of the 473 required and will be removed from the May 12 ballot, the Dallas Morning News reports. Many of Crain's signatures came from people ineligible to vote in Dallas or declared "inactive" by officials because they hadn't voted in years, according to Assistant City Secretary Rosa Rios. "We should have done a better job at securing signatures -- it's really disappointing," says Crain, who promises to fight the ruling. "We haven't figured out what we're going to do, but I'm not going to quit just yet." Crain had hoped to replace current Dallas mayor and former Observer columnist Laura Miller.
"Most American papers look as if they've stopped caring and are just going through the motions," says the National Journal's William Powers. According to the Society for News Design (SND), he's right. The group recently named its best-designed newspapers in the world, and none are American. In an interview with CJR, SND's president Scott Goldman gives his take on the country's design lag. "You see a different attitude toward newspapering in other parts in the world," he says. "Most American papers are cutting at all costs and then sitting back and wondering why advertisers and the readers aren't coming."
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