Grant Daniel Pick, 57, died Feb. 1 of a heart attack. Editor Alison True tells the Chicago Tribune: "There was a generosity of spirit that was typical of him no matter what he was writing about." Pick "produced stories on topics ranging from religion to transgender individuals," and won a Peter Lisagor Award for exemplary journalism from the Chicago Headline Club, the Tribune reports. A story he wrote about Uday Hussein's hypnotist is set to run in Friday's edition of the Reader.
In an article in this week's edition of SF Weekly, Editor John Mecklin suggests that the San Francisco Bay Guardian is facing financial problems brought about largely from the purchase of a new office building, and that these problems might be behind the Bay Guardian's suit against SF Weekly, East Bay Express and New Times, Inc. In order to counter the suit's claim that New Times' Bay Area papers are discounting ads below cost, Mecklin offers accounts of the Guardian engaging in those very practices.
Nil Hira Saptahik and its English-language edition, Blue Diamond Weekly, officially launched on Jan. 21. The papers will give a "voice" to minorities, including gays and lesbians, and will cover sensitive issues like HIV/AIDS, reports UK Gay News. "The aim is to bring the voice of oppressed communities to public attention and to sensitize the public at large on the issues that have been marginalized in Nepali society," says Sunil Babu Pant, founder of the Blue Diamond Society. The publications are a joint venture of the society and the British Embassy in Kathmandu.
Tom Nattell, 52, an alt-weekly contributor and lifelong activist, succumbed to cancer on Tuesday. "By day, he worked most of his adulthood as a research scientist," reads an Albany Times Union article that preceded his death. "Nights and weekends, [he] was tear-gassed, arrested and imprisoned" for standing on "the front lines of seemingly every issue of social justice that washed up the Hudson." Given only months to live, he was "keeping a daily journal, practicing yoga, e-mailing friends, railing against President Bush" and finding peace where he could. In his most recent column for Metroland, Nattell wrote: "This column . . . has provided some solace for me during these recent difficulties, and I appreciate having had the opportunity to share my thoughts with you over the years."
Hybrid autos only hold a tiny fraction of Canada's vehicle market but they are gaining momentum. Sales of the gasoline-electric powered autos jumped more than six-fold from 2003 to about 2,300 units last year and industry watchers predict business could double or triple again this year. The observers said yesterday the only factors that could stymie major growth in hybrid vehicles is a decline in the overall auto market, falling gas prices or not enough supply to meet demand.
Overall economic growth was more consistent in 2004 than 2003, rising at what many economists considered an "above-trend" level. When the final figures are in for the full year, 2004 will probably have an increase in Gross Domestic Product of about 4.4 percent. That is about a full percentage point above what many consider to be the underlying growth potential for the economy
Free weeklies like the Planet Jackson Hole of Jackson, Wyo., remain in the competition to publish towns' legal notices, thanks to action in the Wyoming State Legislature last Wednesday. A provision to a proposed bill that would have required towns to print their legal notices in papers that have paid circulation of 500 or more was shot down even before it got out of committee, Planet Jackson Hole reports. Planet Publisher Mary Grossman said the proposed bill was a rushed attempt by a paid-subscription newspaper in the same market and its Wyoming Press Association lobbyists to squelch competition.
Joshua Greene faced a barrage of criticism after his story about an unidentified soldier being shipped off to Iraq appeared. Soldiers and others insinuated "that I or the soldier or both made the whole story up," Greene wrote in a follow-up column. "Nobody, they say, ever jumped out of a plane 4,426 times. Okay. Maybe it was a helicopter." In Greene's favor, a chaplain called to say the story had resonance, even if the number of jumps was incorrect. "And maybe I'm a flawed journalist, 'cause as the man [the soldier identified only as "Babe"] packed up his house, I didn't call him a liar enough as I sat complicit in sending him to war," Greene muses. The Free Times published a number of letters from readers questioning the story.
The Falmouth Forecaster, a community paper in Portland, Maine, reports that Face -- owned by the publishers of Portland Phoenix, Providence Phoenix and Boston Phoenix -- regularly runs articles by writers using pseudonyms. Among them is Sam Pfeifle, editor of both Face and Portland Phoenix, who has written numerous articles as "Simon Peterson." He explains: "It's meant to be a way to have some fun and allow ourselves creative outlets." The report also notes that Face's "masthead offers few clues to who is real and who is make-believe," with job titles "arranged as if the writers and ad reps are members of a band." (Chris Busby, the author of the piece, is the former editor of the now-defunct Casco Bay Weekly, which competed against Portland Phoenix.)
The most-viewed story on AAN's collaborative news site, AltWeeklies.com, is "Porn, Hypocrisy, Plagiarism: The Dark Side of Jacksonville's Daily," which appeared in the Oct. 12, 2004, edition of Folio Weekly. Written by freelancer Billee Bussard, it accused Florida Times-Union's then-editorial page editor Lloyd Brown of -- among other things -- staring at porn in the workplace and plagiarism. Brown came under fire and stepped down from the daily, only to be hired as a speechwriter by Gov. Jeb Bush (the day after Bush fired a top official over sexual harassment allegations). Now the St. Petersburg Times reports that Brown has stepped down from that post as well.
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