Former Stanford Group Company vice president Tiffany Angelle has sued The Independent Weekly of Lafayette, La., as well as the paper's editorial director Leslie Turk, for their coverage of the company's alleged $8 billion investment scam and its effect on the local community. Angelle is suing the paper for defamation for an April story that reported she had given a reluctant investor a Rolex watch and a lavish trip to keep his business, but the Independent is fighting the suit, saying it was filed "to obstruct the paper's coverage" of the scandal. The Independent, citing Louisiana's anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law, filed a motion to strike the suit earlier this month.

Continue ReadingEx-Financial Firm VP Sues Independent Weekly for Defamation

In an episode of the web TV show "This Week in Startups," Tommy Russo calls in via Skype to chat with host Jason McCabe Calacanis about new media and old (his bit starts about 5 minutes into the show). "Alt-weeklies were the innovative product to the daily newspaper 40 years ago," Russo says. "What's happened is that these papers haven't innovated; they haven't changed." He says that alt-weeklies, like the rest of the newspaper industry, have been barking up the wrong 'net tree. "'How do we get our papers online?' [is] not the right question. The question is: 'How do we dominate our market with news media through this new tool?'" Russo goes on to talk about how alts are well-positioned to become more robust multimedia outlets. "The advantage a weekly paper has is that we are on the streets," he says. "A lot of these online search companies are trying to get into the trenches with us -- but we're already there, we just don't realize it."

Continue ReadingMaui Time Weekly Publisher: Alt-Weeklies ‘Haven’t Innovated’ Online

A Father's Day event at Addison Airport was offering flights on the vintage aircraft B-24 Liberator, and Danny Hurley was there shooting for the Observer with permission from the plane owner and pilot. But then his day was cut short. "Waiting for the plane to take off, I was surprised by the Addison police," Hurley tells the Observer. "An officer unholstered his gun, then handcuffed and held me until Homeland Security cleared my name." Hurley wasn't arrested, but an officer told him that he did break federal law by being on the tarmac, and that a report will be sent to Homeland Security. The pilot told Hurley the airport was also shut down for "a short while."

Continue ReadingPhotographer Working for Dallas Observer Shuts Down Airport

As the Stonewall uprising marks its 40th anniversary, the Village Voice takes a look at stories it published that sparked additional mayhem during that seminal moment in the history of the LGBT rights movement. Five days after the initial events at Stonewall, two Voice stories agitated many LGBT activists; this week the paper republished both stories on the web. Read Howard Smith's account of being trapped inside the Stonewall Inn with police officers as they came under violent attack by the crowd, and Lucian Truscott IV's reporting from the chaotic street scene outside the building.

Continue ReadingHistory Lesson: The Village Voice and Stonewall

Bill Terry, one of the founders of the Times and its editor for many years, died yesterday in St. Louis of complications from cancer. He was 78. "In 1974, Terry, who had recently been fired from the Arkansas Democrat, and Times founder Alan Leveritt, who had recently been fired from the Arkansas Gazette, found each other just in time to save the foundering Union Station Times (later renamed Arkansas Times)," the Times reports. "Terry took over as editor and Leveritt became the ad salesman resulting in a great improvement in both editorial quality and ad income."

Continue ReadingEarly Editor of Arkansas Times Dies

Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC) has purchased Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily for an undisclosed sum. The website, which grew out of Finke's "Deadline Hollywood" column in the L.A. Weekly, has earned praise and awards from colleagues and industry insiders over the past few years and reportedly receives more than 10 million monthly unique visitors. MMC says that within 90 days, Deadline Hollywood Daily "will become bicoastal with the hiring of a New York City-based senior journalist who will report to Finke." MMC owns and operates the Mail.com portal and email service as well as the websites HollywoodLife.com, MovieLine.com and OnCars.com. MORE: Read more from the New York Times, Gawker and AllThingsD.

Continue ReadingMMC Buys Deadline Hollywood Daily, Plans Expansion

Four AAN members took home a total of 17 awards in the 31st Annual Ohio Excellence in Journalism Awards competition, hosted by the Press Club of Cleveland. The Other Paper was named "Best Non-Daily Newspaper in Ohio: Alternatives," with Cincinnati CityBeat taking second in that category. CityBeat also took home four additional awards, including first-place wins for Multiple Illustrations/One Story, Reviews/Criticism, and Single Illustration. Cleveland's Scene took home five total awards as well, including first-place finishes in the Best Section and Community/Local Coverage categories. The now-shuttered Cleveland Free Times won four awards, including firsts in Covers and Features. And in addition to its first place win mentioned above, The Other Paper was given two other awards.

Continue ReadingFour Ohio Alts Recognized in Statewide Awards

PricewaterhouseCoopers' Marcel Fenez tells the New York Times that after a 12 percent plunge this year, global ad spending will not climb back to 2007 levels for five years, largely due to the emergence of cost-free avenues like social media to disseminate branding messages. "It's different this time," he says. "There's obviously some element of cyclical in it, but our belief is that it is largely structural."

Continue ReadingAnalyst: Some Paid Advertising Will Be Lost for Good in Downturn

Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey opined in a column last week that the recent departure of Weekly editor-in-chief Laurie Ochoa was the latest sign that the alt-weekly had "fallen far from the days it was required reading for those in the know about the city." Rainey attributed much of the decline to "bombastic" news editor Jill Stewart, saying "she pushes story lines that make some sense, with arguments that make very little." In response, Stewart says Rainey didn't bother to contact her for his "take-down attempt column," and that he also failed to mention a Weekly story she helmed that heavily critized Rainey. "I am very sad to see Jim launch a wrong-headed attack on me without disclosing that I assigned and edited a story critical of him in 2007," Stewart writes, while noting the Weekly's recent "hammering" of the Times in award competitions. "Our story about Jim was, in fact, far more extensively reported and much better sourced than his about me."

Continue ReadingMedia Critic: L.A. Weekly’s ‘Aggressive Slant Erodes Quality’