Random Lengths News was approved for a grant to fund Armando Segovia to assist the paper in its investigative news reporting of the paper's large immigrant community. Potential investigations include examining the impact on this community by the area's clean trucks program, as well as various aspects of the Mexican government's "war on the drug cartels." Segovia is a previous recipient of a multimedia fellowship at The Coloradoan, and also has interned at a variety of publications, including El Paso Times, El Conquistador and Al Día.

Oklahoma Gazette also received one of the two grants for this cycle for its proposal for Rachel Bradley to serve as the paper's marketing/PR intern. Bradley, an African American student at the University of Oklahoma, will help the paper with its 2010-2011 marketing plan, writes Marketing Director Jill Brown, which "includes some initiatives targeted toward increasing minority readership and community involvement. We are currently not very knowledgeable about these emerging markets, and feel that Rachel would be an asset to the team." Bradley has received a variety of awards for scholastic achievement, and also has worked as an event intern for The CE Group in San Antonio, Texas, and and as a teacher for the First Baptist Church Kaleidoscope After School program in Norman, Oklahoma.

AAN's Diversity Grant Program awards two $1,250 grants twice annually. The program was instituted by the association in 2001 to help alternative weeklies hire and train top-quality minority journalists. The grants are administered through AAN's Diversity Committee.

Continue ReadingAAN Diversity Grants Recipients Announced

Nine seats on the AAN Board of Directors will be up for election this year at the association's annual meeting in Toronto. Prior to the election, The board of directors will consider adopting bylaw amendments that would reduce the board of directors (which now totals 18) to 16 by eliminating two of the four at-large positions.

The annual meeting will be held in Toronto on Saturday, July 17, during the final day of AAN's upcoming convention.

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Continue ReadingNine AAN Board Seats Up for Election

On May 27, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 193 into law, making Colorado the ninth state to ban the shackling of inmates during labor and childbirth. The bill was inspired by Boulder Weekly editor Pamela White's investigation into the treatment of pregnant inmates in state prisons and jails. White was also key in drafting the legislation and pushing the bill forward. "I've written lots of news articles and opinion columns. I've written nine published novels," she says. "But I'd never written a bill."

Continue ReadingBoulder Weekly Investigation Leads to New State Law

Index Newspapers (parent company of The Stranger and Portland Mercury) and Night & Day Studios have released a Savage Love iPhone app, which provides "an interactive take on the love, sex, and relationship advice Dan Savage has been serving up for nearly 20 years," as the press release puts it. The app features a "Question of the Day" updated each afternoon, previous columns and podcasts, and exclusive text and video content. "We thought for sure that the app store would reject this but they approved in record time," Stranger publisher Tim Keck says. "I guess we've lost our touch." The app sells for $1.99, and is tagged in the iTune app store as having "Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity," "Frequent/Intense Profanity or Crude Humor," and "Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes." In other words, everything you love about Savage Love to begin with.

Continue Reading‘Savage Love’ iPhone App Released

The cartoonist behind "This Modern World" was tapped by Pearl Jam to create the cover for the band's most recent album, Backspacer. Now it has gone gold after selling a half-million units, and the band thanked Tomorrow (aka Dan Perkins) with a framed gold record. "I had no idea they were going to pull me up on stage last week in Hartford, and I had no idea this was in the works. It was an incredibly thoughtful gesture on their part, and I was as moved as you might imagine," Perkins says. "And now I have a gold record, with my name on the plaque and everything -- how cool is that?"

Continue ReadingTom Tomorrow Gets Gold Record for Work on Pearl Jam’s ‘Backspacer’

The Connecticut alt-weekly this week introduced "High Concept," a new pot advice column that aims to "address questions of all the smokers out there" in an "entertaining but also useful and informative" way. "We're hoping there will be smart questions about neuroscience, memory studies, the law, high quality, pot culture, etc.," Advocate managing editor John Adamian says in an email.

Continue ReadingHartford Advocate Launches Pot Advice Column

The Denver alt-weekly received a "press vape" award for the best medical marijuana coverage of last year at the Colorado Cannabis Caregiver's Cup this weekend. Timothy Tipton, owner of the Rocky Mountain Caregivers Cooperative and organizer of the Cup, says Westword has excelled at covering "the medical marijuana community from a political standpoint, as well as making extra efforts to do reviews ... and provide service to the community."

Continue ReadingWestword Receives Award for its Medical Marijuana Coverage

AAN voters have spoken and the results are in. The winner of the 2010 Editorial Panel competition is Bradley Zeve, CEO of Monterey County Weekly. Zeve's proposal "Going Deep for a Baker's Dozen: 12 Quick Investigative Story Ideas," proposed a panel in which three experienced editors discuss how to continue producing hard-hiting investigative pieces even in this era of smaller newspaper staffs. The ultimate goal of the panel, according to the proposal, would be for the editors and attendees to generate 12 investigative pieces members can take home and implement, along with a 13th bonus project for AAN members to undertake together.

As the winner of the competition, Zeve is entitled to one free registration to the convention.

AAN also is offering a half-off registration to the second-place winner, Matt Kettmann, senior editor at Santa Barbara Independent, as well as the offer to transform his panel proposal, "Cultivating the Online Culture" into a roundtable discussion during Thursday's editorial roundtables.

Finally, third place winner Jeff Lawrence, publisher of Boston's Weekly Dig, has agreed to lead what is sure to be a lively roundtable discussion from his "Mister Publisher, Tear Down That Wall!" panel proposal that will explore whether, in this Web 2.0 world, the walls between departments, such as editorial and advertising, need to crumble a little more.

The editorial panel competition is a project of AAN's Editorial Committee to generate new ideas and programming for AAN.

Continue ReadingEditorial Panel Competition Winners Have Been Chosen

Sarah Johnson, who has been with the Omaha alt-weekly since December 2008, is leaving to become manager of the Greater Omaha Young Professionals, a group formed by the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce in 2004 to draw younger people into the city's business life. The 27-year-old was reportedly selected from a field of more than 170 applicants.

Continue ReadingThe Reader’s Operations Manager Leaves to Head Local Business Org.