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Expatriate Iraqis talk with Baltimore City Paper's Tom Chalkley about life under -- and after -- Saddam Hussein, about fear, torture, repression and eventually flight. Now they express the fears of many that Saddam is still alive and plotting return to power. "Even if you find his body, you still don't know," one expat Iraqi tells Chalkley. "Even if I killed him with my own hands, I wouldn't know if he's dead or not."

Continue ReadingIraqis in America Look Back at Saddam

Caryn Brooks, arts and culture editor at Willamette Week, has been named one of seven 2003-04 fellows of the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. "In addition to pursuing coursework and other activities at Columbia, the fellows will participate jointly in a research project designed to inform news organizations, arts institutions and philanthropic organizations about important trends in the current U.S. artistic and journalistic environment," the program's release states.

Continue ReadingAAN Editor Named NAJP Fellow

Jann Wenner and Mortimer Zuckerman want it. So do the Tribune Co. and the New York Times. "It" is New York magazine, which is perhaps coveted less for potential profits than for its media-historical cachet. Founded in 1968 by Clay Felker, who also owned and edited The Village Voice, New York's sharp take on the cultural and political life of the city and its hip version of service journalism invented the city magazine and had a profound influence on the development of the alternative newspaper. "For five or six years, Clay Felker's version of New York magazine did something revolutionary," New York Observer Editor Peter Kaplan tells The New York Times' David Carr. "It not only invented the city magazine, it restated the city around it. And that is a great thing."

Continue ReadingNew York Magazine Attracts Potential Suitors
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Last week, DNA evidence led to an exoneration hearing for Ryan Matthews, who had been convicted of the 1997 killing of a Bridge City, La., grocer. For one man, the news means hope. For another, re-opening the wound of his father's death is agony. Gambit Weekly's Katy Reckdahl looks at all sides of this story of miscarried justice.

Continue ReadingDid They Convict the Wrong Man?

If you started at the beginning, in 1955, when The Village Voice was founded, and ranked companies by how much they spent on advertising in alternative newspapers, Tower Records would probably end up at the top of the list. After several years of financial difficulty, the Sacramento-based chain that has long been a beacon of pop culture was recently put on the block. "I expect that the new owners will keep the values ... we stand for," Russ Solomon, the company's founder and owner, tells The Sacramento Bee. "(W)hich is the idea that, as much as you can afford to, you represent as many kinds of music, video and books as you possibly can."

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Stalwart Tower Up for Sale
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In any other universe, the concept of a disgraced former governor reinventing himself as a pastry chef -- and then siccing his high-powered Washington, D.C. lawyer on a newspaper that called him a "criminal" in a restaurant review -- would be too surreal for words. "But, hey, this is Arizona, a true alternate universe where J. Fife Symington, the only governor ever to resign from office following a conviction on felony bank-fraud charges, really did start whipping up desserts to die for after an appeals court threw out his case on a technicality," Phoenix New Times Editor Rick Barrs reports. Symington was pardoned by "that Krispy Kreme-eatin' bastard Bill Clinton" ... And really did get his tortes in a knot and make noises about suing after a Phoenix New Times food critic had the audacity to use the "c" word -- and we ain't talkin' "cheesecake" -- in a discussion of the various ways one can roll in dough."

Continue ReadingFife Symington’s Just Desserts