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"Hey, this is cool," Matt Brunson remembers thinking when he was offered the opportunity to write for the alt-weekly in 1988. "I'll be able to earn a couple of extra bucks before this paper folds within the year." Twenty years later, he's Creative Loafing's associate editor and A&E editor. "When this paper started, hardly any of us really knew what we were doing," writes former editor-in-chief John Grooms. "It was [Creative Loafing's] first expansion into another city, and the nuts and bolts of how to do it, more often than not, were up in the air." He says the paper has succeeded because it's "been a source of good writing and quality information, speaking to the reader directly and urging readers to talk back as loudly as they want."

Continue ReadingCreative Loafing (Charlotte) Celebrates 20th Anniversary

AAN launched a web publishing news blog at web.aan.org last month. For more information on the blog, visit the about page, the editorial policy, and the blog style guide. Recent posts include:

Continue ReadingRecent Coverage on Web.AAN.org

Last year, 50 percent of total online video ad revenue went to local newspaper sites, while 20 percent went to TV-station sites and the remainder was spread among other local sites, according to a new Borrell Associates report. While video accounted for only five percent of local online advertising this year, Borrell expects that figure to increase to 35 percent by 2012, for a total of more than $7.7 billion.

Continue ReadingBorrell: Newspapers Nab Largest Share of Local Web Video Ads

In January, Metro Silicon Valley and North Bay Bohemian reported that Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband Richard C. Blum was a major beneficiary of contracts from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) that she chaired. Last month, Feinstein quietly left the subcommittee after six years of service. "Perhaps she resigned from MILCON because she could not take the heat generated by Metro's expose of her ethics," reporter Peter Byrne speculates. "Or was her work on the subcommittee finished because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and advanced weapons manufacturing firms in late 2005?" Whatever the explanation, Feinstein's resignation caused a stir amongst a number of right-wing pundits, who claim liberal media bias is keeping the story out of the mainstream media. UPDATE: Peter Byrne informs AAN that it's not just the right that's up in arms about Feinstein's conflicts: Members of Code Pink and the Raging Grannies protested outside her San Francisco home this weekend. "It is an investigative journalist's dream to watch a story mobilize people across the political spectrum -- from Rush Limbaugh's Dittoheads to the Raging Grannies and Code Pink," Byrne tells AAN News. "And having reactionary demogogues pump up a story whose research was funded in part by The Nation Institute has a delicious irony."

Continue ReadingSen. Feinstein Resigns from Subcommittee After Alt-Weekly Expose

But the men aren't hiding from the law. Incredibly, they were ordered to sleep under that bridge by state authorities, New Times' Isaiah Thompson reported last month. Residency restrictions for sex offenders have complicated the task of finding suitable housing for some offenders, especially those who leave prison homeless. "Probation officers just don't know what to do with cases like this," a Florida Department of Corrections spokesperson tells New Times. The alt-weekly's report has kicked up a storm of follow-up coverage, including stories by CNN and the Associated Press. But as New Times Broward-Palm Beach reporter Bob Norman complains on his blog (referring specifically to CNN), it's "too bad they're too arrogant and unprofessional to say whose scoop it is."

Continue ReadingMiami New Times Reveals Sex Offenders Living Under a Bridge