The Detroit alt-weekly appeared in The Tonight Show's famous "Headlines" segment this week -- not for an egregious typo or funny double entendre, but for hot primate-on-primate action. The Carl Oxley illustration on the cover of the paper's summer guide featured a variety of monkeys enjoying summertime in their own ways -- grilling, picnicking, sunbathing, and, yes, having sex behind a bush. If only Leno or his staff had done a little more research, perhaps this alt-weekly cover copulation wouldn't have been so shocking. Instead, the show found it funny because, as Leno says, "I guess it's a thing for kids."

Continue ReadingMetro Times Gets Awkward Shout-out from Jay Leno

Publisher Mike Crystal tells Crain's that as part of its redesign plans, the paper will distribute just one edition to both the city and suburbs starting this week. The suburban edition -- a smaller version of the paper called the Reader's Guide to Arts & Entertainment -- was launched in 1996. Crystal says the decision is part of the switch to a tabloid format (scheduled for the first week of October), and it likely would have happened with or without the paper's recent ownership change. The Reader's new circulation total of 135,000 will be the same as the combined circulation was for the two editions, but the paper is calling it a 15 percent increase in circulation for the main product and is raising ad rates six to seven percent, Crain's reports.

Continue ReadingChicago Reader Ends Suburban Edition

Twenty-four alt-weeklies will publish a story this week investigating the murder of independent video journalist Brad Will and the apparent cover-up by Mexican authorities. The story, commissioned by AAN, was reported by John Ross, a veteran journalist and author of eight books examining Mexican politics, and edited by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. While those who fired shots at Will are easily identified in the footage he took of his own death, as well as in contemporaneous photographs of the scene, they have not been brought to justice. Ross's story identifies the likely perpetrators as Mexican law enforcement officials associated with the Party of the Institutional Revolution, or PRI. "Who Killed Brad Will?" marks the sixth editorial project commissioned by AAN.

Continue ReadingAlt-Weeklies Investigate the Murder of Indy Journalist Brad Will

As we reported yesterday, the group behind the killing of Oakland Post journalist Chauncey Bailey waged a campaign of intimidation against then-East Bay Express writer Chris Thompson after he wrote a series critical of the group. Thompson, now with the Village Voice, recounts his experience being stalked by the group's followers. They tried to follow him home, so he'd have different colleagues drive him so they wouldn't recognize the cars, he writes. They repeatedly called him with greetings like "Mr. Thompson, I just want to say that your days are numbered," and "You fucked up for the last time, and your time is up." The death threats -- and the lack of response to his complaints by the Oakland Police Department -- forced him out of the Bay Area. "I spent several months out in the countryside of Northern California, reporting and writing my Metro column from an old hunting lodge ... [until] the goons got bored with hunting for me, and I slowly returned to the office full-time. Chauncey Bailey wasn't so lucky, but he fought the good fight against bad men."

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Writer On His Run-ins With the Yusef Bey Family