Despite vows by Willamette Week that they'd "beat the living shit" out of their cross-town rivals' softball team, the Merc prevailed for the second year in a row on Sunday, by a score of 11-8. "It was another great Sunday in the world of sports," writes the Mercury's Wm. Steven Humphrey. "The WW has really improved since last year, and made a strong showing with numerous hits and good fielding, but ultimately it was the surgical style of the Mercury that won the day." AAN members: we know that many of you have softball squads hitting the diamond this summer. Feel free to report successes, failures and box scores to jwhiten (at) aan.org.

Continue ReadingPortland Mercury Wins Cross-Town Softball Battle

In a letter to AAN News, ex-OC Weekly editor Will Swaim maintains that The Nation's "[Jon] Wiener did a fine job" conveying the paper's "loss ... of independence" under Village Voice Media, but claims that Wiener got at least one thing wrong. "[The article reports that] I told Jon Wiener that OC Weekly's film coverage was run out of Denver. I didn't say that," writes Swaim, now the publisher of Long Beach alt-weekly The District. MORE: In a letter to The Nation published on the OC Weekly blog, Gustavo Arellano says that "many of the overarching conclusions" reached by Wiener in the piece "are ludicrous."

Continue ReadingSwaim: Minor Clarification on The Nation’s LA Weekly Piece

In an effort to reach out to the region's growing Hispanic population, the Western Massachusetts alt-weekly has entered a content-sharing partnership with La Prensa del oeste de Massachusetts (The Press of Western Mass.), a monthly English-Spanish newspaper. La Prensa's editor and publisher Natalia Munoz will contributing an occasional column to the alt-weekly, and some Valley Advocate stories will run in La Prensa. In addition, the Advocate is rolling out an ad campaign targeting La Prensa's Hispanic readers.

Continue ReadingValley Advocate Starts Partnership With Bilingual Newspaper

Washington City Paper's Pete Morelewicz and his wife Christine Henry have decided to close their collection of squished pennies to the public after running it out of the front hallway of their home for 11 years, the Washington Post reports. "We started to get so many visitors that we were overwhelmed," Morelewicz says. "We didn't have enough time to accommodate everyone who wanted to visit us. And that was really tough for them as well as for us, because we wanted to make people happy."

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Art Director Closes His Squished Penny Museum