The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) says that unique monthly visitors reached a record of 67.3 million in 2008 -- up 12.1 percent over 60 million in 2007. But as Media Daily News reports, the big increases in traffic simply are not translating into increased online revenues. Fourth-quarter figures are not yet available from the NAA, but online revenues slumped 2.4 percent in the second quarter and 3 percent in the third.
Lloyd Dangle reports that The Stranger and Metro Silicon Valley have cut his "Troubletown" cartoon. "[The papers] said that they might bring Troubletown back when things get better," Dangle writes, "but for newspapers, I don't know anybody who thinks it's going to get better." Meanwhile, Max Cannon of "Red Meat" has posted "an urgent message" on his website, saying "the alternative comics apocalypse has begun."
The free daily tabloid that launched in Baltimore in 2006 will deliver its last issue Feb. 15, Baltimore City Paper reports. Examiner parent company Clarity Media Group reportedly wanted to focus its East Coast efforts on its Washington, D.C., edition and was looking for someone to buy the Baltimore edition. But when the search came up empty, the company made the decision to close up shop.
The California Air Resources Board backed away last Friday from strict new regulations that would have put Berkeley startup 3 Prong Power out of business and dealt a severe blow to the nascent plug-in hybrid industry, the Express reports. 3 Prong president Daniel Sherwood credited an Express cover story published a little more than a week before the air resources board meeting with helping save the rapidly-growing industry. After the story came out, the board received more than 130 comments on the proposed strict new rules, the vast majority of which were opposed to them.
In the old days, when the media reported on problems in the newspaper industry, alternative newspapers weren't included. But alt-weeklies are immune no longer: In 2008, many AAN papers faced some of the same issues afflicting their mainstream brethren in the print media. However, you can still find alt-weeklies that had a pretty good year in 2008. That's just what AAN's editor Jon Whiten did, and he reports on 10 papers that increased revenue in a story published by Editor & Publisher.
Publisher Richard Meeker reports that 3,902 people made 8,419 donations totaling $806,581.81 to WW's 2008 Give!Guide, an annual program that supports local nonprofits and encourages the philanthropic impulse among readers 35 and under. When combined with the $4,000 in prizes from WW and $16,000 in prize money from a local research and consulting firm, the total raised this year for 55 Portland-area nonprofits was $826,581.81. Meeker says that's a 60 percent increase over last year and almost 40 times what the Give!Guide raised when it debuted four years ago.
Tom Tomorrow broke the news yesterday on his blog that the ailing economy is forcing Village Voice Media to suspend publication of syndicated cartoons "at least through the rest of the first quarter, and quite possibly beyond." City Pages editor Kevin Hoffman tells the Minnesota Independent he expects some reader backlash, but says the suspension is part of an effort to "trim where we can while inflicting the least damage -- realizing that we're already cutting bone." MORE: Syndicated cartoonists Jen Sorensen and Derf weigh in.
Owner and publisher Kerry Farley sold the paper to local radiologist and nightclub owner Mehdi Adineh, who hired Paul Noah to be his publisher. Noah brings a diverse background to City Paper, including stints as a radio personality and in radio sales. Most recently he ran a promotions and marketing agency in Dayton. He tells AAN News he "has no intention from deviating from the path" set by Farley, who has been publisher of the paper since 2001 and its owner since 2005. Farley tells us that after he finishes up a stint advising the new owner and publisher, he will do a little traveling and then decide what comes next. "I've been doing this for 15 years," he says. "It's kind of time." Terms of the deal, effective Jan. 1, were not disclosed.
Bradley Campbell's story examining the Evangelical Lutheran Church's complex relationship with gays and lesbians seeking to lead congregations has been nominated in the Outstanding Newspaper Article category in the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's (GLAAD) 20th annual media awards. The 2007 Academy for Alternative Journalism alum's piece was nominated alongside work done in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant and Nashua, N.H., Telegraph. Winners will be announced in March.
St. Petersburg Times journalist John Fleming claims that CL theater critic Mark E. Leib faces a conflict of interest working as both a critic and a playwright in the Tampa Bay area, and that objectively reviewing plays at a theater that also happens to be staging one of Leib's works should be frowned upon. "I've been theater critic for Creative Loafing for more than ten years, and this is the first time that anyone has suggested that my opinions have been influenced by any sort of favoritism for any sort of reason," Leib writes. "I don't like it and I'm not going to sit back quietly while it happens." MORE: Village Voice critic Michael Feingold, who is also a playwright, offers his take.
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