The nightlife and culture website affiliated with the Los Angeles Times will have a companion newspaper released weekly, Editor & Publisher reports. The print edition will be in a tabloid format, with 100,000 copies distributed free each week. Metromix sites are currently up and running in other cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and New York, but there's no word yet whether Tribune intends to introduce print products in those markets as well.

Continue ReadingTribune Co. Launches Print Edition of Metromix in L.A.

The Metro Newspapers CEO is "one of the few publishers that have successfully navigated the treacherous straights between print media and the new world online," the trade magazine Domain Name Journal says in a cover profile. The story concentrates on Pulcrano's creation of Boulevards New Media and his acquisition of a "near priceless portfolio that includes 20 of the 30 largest American city names in the .com extension." But Pulcrano also talks about how he got into journalism and ended up creating Metro Newspapers in the first place. He started publishing underground papers at age 11, later reported for the San Diego Reader, and then was approached by Jay Levin to help launch the L.A. Weekly when he was 19 years old. "Working there was life changing for me too; from that point on I knew what I wanted to do," he says of his stint at the Weekly.

Continue ReadingHow Dan Pulcrano Went from Print Publisher to Web Pioneer

"Grant Pick had been writing for the Reader for about a quarter of a century when, at the age of 57, he died of a heart attack walking home from lunch. That was three years ago last week," writes Michael Miner in the Reader. "In many ways, Grant was the writer who best defined this paper. As he liked telling journalism students who read his pieces and asked where the news pegs were, 'There is no news peg. The people are the news.'" That anecdote is the basis for the title of a collection of his work organized by his son John Pick, The People Are The News: Grant Pick's Chicago Stories. The book "makes a great crash course in Chicago's subcultures and recent history, and its residents' heritage of tenacity," Time Out Chicago says.

Continue ReadingLate Chicago Reader Writer’s Work Collected in New Book

Village Voice Media chief financial officer Jed Brunst and former SF Weekly publisher Chris Keating took the stand yesterday in the predatory-pricing trial. In its wrap-up, the SF Weekly focuses on the part of Brunst's testimony that offered "evidence that Weekly rates have been going up over time," not down. The Bay Guardian, on the other hand, focuses on the "huge amounts of cash" the Weekly and the East Bay Express had lost under New Times/VVM control. The trial takes a day off today for Lincoln's Birthday, and will resume on Wednesday.

Continue ReadingTestimony Continues in Bay Guardian/VVM Trial

"I Love You, I Hate You" is a City Paper message board filled with rants from people on everything from lust to jealousy to thievery. Allison Heishman has scoured the last three years' worth of postings and culled the best for tonight's dramatic reading at the Azuka Theatre Company's Valentines Party, Metro reports. Heishman, who is literary manager for the theatre company, says she expects a bigger crowd than at Azuka's other events due to the feature's popularity. "It's amazing how many people say, 'that's the first part of the City Paper I read every week'," she says.

Continue ReadingPhiladelphia City Paper Gets Dramatized for V-Day

On Friday, Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey testified in the predatory pricing trial. The Guardian says Lacey "had some trouble answering some key questions" about SF Weekly's ad sales and a 1995 meeting where he met the Weekly staff shortly after purchasing the paper. The Weekly says Lacey's testimony illustrated that his and Bruce Brugmann's "editorial philosophies were worlds apart," and notes that Lacey's testimony showed he is not involved in the business side of VVM's affairs. This is key because of comments he made about being "the only game in town," which the Guardian is using as evidence he wanted to drive them out of business. Patricia Calhoun, editor of Denver's Westword, which New Times bought in 1983, also testified on Friday, and according to the Weekly, she "got on and off the stand in only about twenty minutes, a timely performance that drew appreciative nods from jurors." The trial resumes today.

Continue ReadingVVM Witnesses Begin Taking the Stand in Bay Guardian Suit