"It is nice to have all the restaurants and attractions and souvenir shops down by the harbor," the intro to the paper's city guide reads. "But Baltimore is so much more, and knowing that -- and wanting to share that information with future visitors -- inspired the staff of City Paper, Baltimore's Free Alternative Weekly, to create this guide to our city." The "Baltimanual" is both a print product and a microsite that will be constantly updated with new content.

Continue ReadingBaltimore City Paper Launches ‘Baltimanual’ City Guide

The Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Awards have announced the winners of its 2009 awards contest. The Cleveland Scene won seven total awards, finishing first for Arts Profile, Media Criticsm, Newsmaker Profile, Public Service Journalism and Rock and Roll Feature Reporting. The Cleveland Free Times, which was merged with the Scene in July 2008, took home two awards, including a first-place win for Consumer Reporting, and The Other Paper of Columbus won five awards.

Continue ReadingOhio Alt-Weeklies Take Home 14 State Press Awards

The city of Cincinnati and a coalition of local religious and nonprofit leaders led by Citizens for Community Values (CCV) have settled a federal lawsuit filed last year by CityBeat after the groups and law enforcement leaders had publicly asked the paper to stop publishing adult-oriented classified ads. "After a long year of fighting for our First Amendment right to publish CityBeat without government interference, I'm pleased and gratified to wrap up the legal proceedings on such a positive note," co-publisher and editor John Fox writes. While he admits that fighting the suit was "distracting at times," Fox says there was a principle to uphold. "I remain convinced that standing up to the CCV coalition's threats and intimidation was the right thing to do," he writes. "After all, the only reason bullies do what they do is because they think they can get away with it."

Continue ReadingCoalition Settles Suit With Cincinnati CityBeat

"The project has been both the most benign undertaking of the year and the most important," Weekly editor Rachael Daigle writes, "as an industrywide slump forced staffing changes while we simultaneously rolled out a new website, inaugurated first-ever supplements, and then radically changed Best of Boise." She says "the new design represents a maturity" in the nearly-18-year-old alt-weekly.

Continue ReadingBoise Weekly Unveils Redesigned Print Product

At a debate held in a local bar over the weekend, Seattle mayoral candidates Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan were given one minute to answer each question, with the option of being granted a time extension ... if they took a shot of whiskey. Weekly managing editor and debate co-moderator Mike Seely tells KING 5 News that the forum was designed to get the candidates to show off their personalities instead of relying on the usual sound bites, and also to bring the race to a new audience. "We figure we had a captive audience that had about no interest in politics, and we figured we'd force feed them politics," Seely says.

Continue ReadingSeattle Weekly’s Mayoral Debate Helps Candidates Reach New Audience

"Sales may be flat, bookstores may be struggling and book sections may be dying, but the critical conversation about books continues to be robust, intelligent and adventurous," former San Francisco Chronicle book critic Patricia Holt writes on Huffington Post. She points to six websites as proof, including AltWeeklies.com, of which she writes: "If you're weary of the received wisdom of official book review sites ... here is a treasury of refreshing and often unpredictable takes from alternative weeklies all over the country."

Continue ReadingBook Critic: AltWeeklies.com is Part of a ‘River of Critical Energy’ Online

"It's funny how the national media has jumped all over this," Patricia Calhoun writes of the attention being given to the paper's quest to hire a freelance critic to review medical marijuana dispensaries. But while most outlets have taken a "light, fun" tone to the story, she says the issue is serious business in Colorado. "There's one aspect of our search for a reviewer that's not funny: How very, very important easy access to quality medical marijuana is for so many people," Calhoun writes.

Continue ReadingWestword Editor: Pot Critic Story is ‘Very Serious’

Ted Rall has teamed up with Pablo G. Callejo for The Year of Loving Dangerously, which is based on Rall's experience getting arrested, dumped, expelled and evicted in New York City in 1984. It's Rall's first collaborative effort, and it hits stores next month. "Year is an allegory for the economic collapse, showcasing what can happen to anyone, even a white Ivy-educated male, who suffers a run of bad luck," Rall writes. "It's also a shot across the bow of other male graphic artists who wallow in self-pity and alienation." The Washington Post's Michael Cavna says the book is "a little bit Midnight Cowboy in tone, and part The Graduate."

Continue ReadingTed Rall Releases New Graphic Memoir