The paper's director of digital development tells AAN News that the widget pulls its "I Saw You" listings into Facebook. "Our users love to check these out to see if they or someone they know has been spotted. Now they don't have to wait a week to read them," Bob Kilpatrick says. "The most recent three postings update on their Facebook profile every hour. It brings our brand to mind and increases readership: The widget connects right to our personals site so potential new users can create profiles and start making contacts." If you're interested in finding out more about the widget or having Seven Days build one for your personal ads, email Bob at bob (at) sevendaysvt.com.

Continue ReadingNew Widget from Seven Days Links Personals to Facebook

Carlton Carl is the new CEO and executive publisher of the Observer. He most recently was vice president of media affairs and policy and strategy for the American Association for Justice. The Observer is also bringing back Brad Tyer, who has been named its new managing editor. Tyer, who did a stint as the Observer's interim editor a few years ago and has worked at the Houston Press and Willamette Week, was most recently editor of the Missoula Independent.

Continue ReadingTexas Observer Names New Executive Publisher and Managing Editor

The Phoenix was named "Newspaper of the Year" in the alternative weekly division by the New England Press Association in its 2007 Better Newspaper Contest. "After 40 years, the Boston Phoenix remains a model for alts, bristling with attitude and loaded with coverage of entertainment, culture, politics, and tweaking of the daily press," the judges say. The Boston alt-weekly led the pack of AAN papers represented in the awards with 12 first-place finishes. Boston's Weekly Dig was close behind it's crosstown competitor, grabbing seven first-place awards. The Portland Phoenix and Worcester Magazine each finished first in three categories, while the Hartford Advocate and the Providence Phoenix each took home one first-place award.

Continue ReadingNEPA Names Boston Phoenix ‘Newspaper of the Year,’ Gives Alts Many Awards

The documents in question were held by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, the same outfit involved in the secret grand jury kerfuffle that led to the arrests of Village Voice Media executives Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey and, ultimately, to the humiliation of county attorney Andrew Thomas and special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik. New Times originally sought the documents in May 2004; MCSO released them five months later, after New Times was forced to file suit. On Tuesday, the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's ruling, finding that MCSO "wrongfully denied New Times access to public records." The Court of Appeals sent the case back to superior court "for a further determination on the issue of attorney's fees." In the Arizona Republic, the Sheriff's deputy chief admitted that the officer responsible for complying with public-records requests "was truly afraid of the (New Times) reporter, that there was a genuine personal joint vendetta between the two of them."

Continue ReadingAppeals Court Rules in Favor of Phoenix New Times in Public Docs Case

With the testimony of San Francisco Bay Guardian editor and publisher Bruce Brugmann concluded, drama in the courtroom subsided on Wednesday as Guardian attorneys read depositions from VVM chief financial officer Jed Brunst and former SF Weekly publisher Chris Keating. The SF Weekly's dispatch is here, and the Bay Guardian's take is here.

Continue ReadingA Relatively Quiet Day at the SFBG-VVM Trial

"There’s no end to President Bush’s slyness in subverting new Congressional law and clinging to the secrecy that has been the administration’s executive cloak," says the New York Times today in an editorial decrying the budgetary legerdemain Bush used to gut a key provision of the recently passed OPEN Government Act. The Washington Examiner editorial page weighs in on the controversy as well.

Continue ReadingNYT: The Cult of Secrecy at the White House

City Paper art director Joe MacLeod narrates a short video shot during the paper's recent party at G-Spot, a local art gallery displaying large blow-ups of pages and covers published during the last three decades by Baltimore's finest alt-weekly. "Each page is sort of like a piece of artwork," says MacLeod, who laments the fact that the "archetypal alt-weekly-style feature ... it has that certain look ... it's all kinda going away because of digital. ... That kind of classic alt-weekly look is disappearing." Not that he cares, of course.

Continue ReadingBaltimore City Paper Celebrates 30 Years at Art Gallery Show

Although their dispatches read as if they're reporting from two different trials, both SF Weekly and the Bay Guardian agree that the temperature in the courtroom rose on Tuesday when the Bay Guardian's editor and publisher, Bruce Brugmann, took the stand. According to VVM's Andy Van De Voorde, Brugmann "exploded on the stand ... pounding his hand on the witness box, raising his voice, and growing red-faced." But Bay Guardian executive editor Tim Redmond says his boss "stood up remarkably well under a cross-examination" and "generally made the SF Weekly's lawyer look silly." The Bay Guardian filed a more extensive report on the trial here, while SF Weekly posted dispatches following the action on Friday and Monday.

Continue ReadingFireworks in SFBG-VVM Trial as Brugmann Testifies