As we reported last week, the California Supreme Court squelched the Santa Barbara Independent's last legal hope in a long fight over turning over some unpublished crime scene photographs. With the court declining to hear an appeal, the paper and staff photographer Paul Wellman faced criminal punishment -- including possible jail time -- if they continued to hold the photos. So the Independent, rather than give the photos to the district attorney, decided to publish all 334 of them on its website this week. "We did make a point of dragging this case out to the bitter end," explains news editor Nick Welsh. "This was in part inspired by the assault on the media that's been taking place for the past eight years, and the utter contempt for the public's right to know -- anything -- displayed by the Bush Administration."
The annual report issued by the Project for Excellence in Journalism finds the alt-weekly industry still struggling with an aging readership, stalled circulation, and increased competition, especially online. However, the report notes that the overall reader migration from print to web might eventually benefit alt-weeklies, since online is "a platform well suited for a sector that specializes in niche, intensely local content." Also noted: small and mid-market papers are seeing the most growth in revenue; and alt-weekly readers are "perfect" media users, with "a tendency to be avid consumers of other media, more so than the public overall."
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Craigslist should not be held liable for discriminatory housing ads posted on the site, the Associated Press reports. The decision upholds a Nov. 2006 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, which ruled that Craigslist serves as an intermediary party, not a publisher, and that the federal Communications Decency Act protects sites that allow users to post unedited messages and communicate freely in forums.
According to a Sunshine Week survey by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University, 74 percent of American adults view the federal government as secretive, and nearly nine in 10 say it's important to know presidential and congressional candidates' positions on open government when deciding who to vote for. The findings indicate a "significant increase" in the percentage of Americans who believe the federal government is very or somewhat secretive, up from 62 percent of those surveyed in 2006. Sunshine Week, a non-partisan open government initiative, is this week.
The California State Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a petition from the Santa Barbara Independent and staff photographer Paul Wellman asking the court to review a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge's decision to hold the paper and Wellman in contempt of court for not handing over photos from a murder last year, the Independent reports. This exhausts the legal options the paper had to fight the initial ruling. "I'm not surprised," Independent attorney Mike Cooney says. "Even though I'm devoted to the concept the subpoena was overbroad, it's difficult for appellate courts to review during criminal proceedings." Wellman faces potential imprisonment and the paper faces fines if they continue to refuse the subpoena, but both parties haven't yet decided what to do.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the Weekly has named former executive editor Stacy Willis as the new editor, replacing Scott Dickensheets, who left last month for Las Vegas CityLife. The Weekly has also named Ken Miller managing editor.
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