In the editorial of E&P's latest issue, the magazine rails against the "Soviet-style arrests" of Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin in the Phoenix New Times grand-jury subpoena fiasco and the "lavish waste of public funds" used by the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation to investigate and ultimately arrest Orlando Weekly employees for "aiding and abetting prostitution." E&P commends the local mainstream dailies in Phoenix and Orlando for sticking up for the alt-weeklies in these two cases. "But dailies too rarely make common cause with their local alt-weekly when they are targeted by the familiar harassments of police ad stings, library banishments, and 'litter' laws concerned more about free papers stacked in a store than candy wrappers on the sidewalk," the magazine says. "Usually that's because the mainstream paper's top people resent the snarky coverage they get from the alternative with its sneering cheap shots. But thuggish local authorities who believe they can act with impunity against alt-papers will soon wonder just how much they can get away with against the mainstream daily."

Continue ReadingEditor & Publisher Decries ‘The War on Alt-Papers’

Much like when it started running Savage Love, Eugene Weekly's decision to run Gustavo Arellano's syndicated column has been greeted with some opposition: letters to the editor have called the OC Weekly staffer "racist," while leaders of the local Latino community have pressed the paper to drop the column. KEZI-TV hits the streets, finds folks "outraged" over ¡Ask a Mexican! and wonders "What's next: 'Ask an Asian'"? "It's even better than that," Arellano writes on the OC Weekly blog, "it's 'Ask a Korean!', and it's pinche brilliant."

Continue Reading¡Ask a Mexican! Causes a Stir in Eugene

The 2008 AltWeekly Awards is now accepting entries. AAN's Editorial Committee has made several changes to the contest. For the first time, all entries in the Writing categories must be submitted as URLs or PDFs. The contest will only accept hard copies of materials in the Cartoon, Special Section or Design categories. In addition, the committee added two new categories, Innovation and Public Service, and eliminated four others: Ad Design, Format Buster, Website Content Feature and Wild Card. In the Cartoon category, all entrants will compete in one division. The contest website will close on the contest deadline, Fri., Jan. 25, 2008 at midnight (EST).

Continue ReadingCall for Entries: 2008 AltWeekly Awards