A total of 400 people descended on the Pennsylvania Convention Center and the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown two weeks ago for the 2008 AAN Convention. The three-day event featured the usual mix of presentations and panels, food and booze, and business talk and gossip between alt-weekly staffers and industry types from across North America. AAN committees and staff mostly took care of the first item, while host paper Philadelphia City Paper had the second one covered, and attendees proved themselves more than capable of handling the third on their own.
After a vigorous and sometimes philosophical discussion of media ownership and the changing media landscape, AAN members approved four of the 11 membership applications that were considered during the association's annual meeting on Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia. City Pulse (Lansing, Mich.), Fast Forward (Calgary, Alberta), Hawaii Island Journal (Hilo, Hawaii) and Las Vegas CityLife (Las Vegas, Nev.) were each welcomed into the association. Members also voted to affirm the continuing membership of five papers whose ownership had changed in 2007.
There was a significant error in the 2008 Membership Committee Recommendations posted to AAN.org last week. The Membership Committee did not recommend that the membership of Metro Pulse of Knoxville, Tenn., be affirmed. Metro Pulse was acquired by E.W. Scripps, a media company that owns the daily newspaper, business newspaper, Knoxville Magazine, and other publications in the Knoxville market. Per the AAN bylaws, ownership of member papers must reflect and advance the following values of the association:
- Competitive editorial and business environment, especially within local markets
- A multiplicity and diversity of media voices
- Independence from media conglomerates or other entities deemed detrimental to the interest of the alternative press and the maintenance of media diversity.
The committee feels that Metro Pulse's new ownership situation is not in line with the bylaws and therefore does not recommend the paper for affirmation, and the committee's report has been amended as such.
Programming at the 31st Annual AAN Convention gets underway this afternoon at 2:30 pm. If you can't make it to the City of Brotherly Love to join us, be sure check the Convention Blog during the next few days for updates and coverage.
All of the members who have announced their candidacies are thus far running unopposed. However, AAN bylaws do not require individuals to declare their intention to run in advance. Any regular members who are interested in seeking a seat on the board can be nominated from the floor at the annual meeting, which will be held on Saturday, June 7, during the association's annual meeting in Philadelphia. Read here to find out who has announced they are running, why they want to serve on the board, and what they view as the important issues facing AAN and its members.
The convention's still a week away, but today AAN is unveiling this year's community blog, Philadelphia2008.aan.org. This marks the second year AAN is running a community blog for the convention. We'll be using the blog to share updates on the convention as well as recommend places to go in Philly, but the blog is also yours, and we welcome anyone attending the convention to join us and blog -- click here to register.
The Association's Annual Meeting will be held Saturday, June 7, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. A PDF copy of the notice and agenda for the meeting, along with a proxy form, is available here. During the meeting, AAN members will consider new member applications and the five current members up for review, elect 10 members of the Board of Directors, discuss and approve fiscal year 2009's budget, and consider and vote upon a proposal to amend the Association's bylaws.
This year the committee recommends two of the 12 applying papers for admission to the association: City Pulse from Lansing, Mich., and Hawaii Island Journal from Hilo, Hawaii. The committee also recommends that the five papers that have changed ownership recently be re-affirmed as members of the organization. Those papers are: Metro Pulse, The Other Paper, Cityview, East Bay Express, and Boston's Weekly Dig. The committee's complete report is available in the Resource Library, along with a document featuring ownership reports on each of the applying papers and the papers up for review. The reports will also be available in printed form during this year's Convention in Philadelphia. Each AAN member paper can vote for or against the acceptance of an applying paper at the association's annual meeting, which will be held on the last day of the Convention, Saturday, June 7.
After months of planning and preparation, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies today debuted the second iteration of AltWeeklies.com, the association's story-sharing and content-portal website. The new site incorporates many new types of content and organizes it all in a way that makes it much easier for users to find what they are looking for. Read here to learn more about the changes.
AAN this week is launching a comments feature on stories posted to this site. AAN members must be logged in to read and/or make comments.
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