Today, AAN debuts AltWeeklies.com: The Week in Review, a new feature that will highlight the week's best stories from AltWeeklies.com, dig out dusties from the archives, and note story ideas that other papers can easily steal. In this week's installment: Kurt Vonnegut, unsexy men, the SEIU, David Sedaris, war tax resisters, ghost soldiers, Paul Wolfowitz and a commuter challenge.

Ten young journalists have been chosen as this year's class from a national pool of over 200 applicants. Intended as a recruitment and training tool for minority journalists, AAJ has roots 25 years deep in a diversity program started at the Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Ill. Now fully funded by AAN's Alternative Newsweekly Foundation, the eight-week summer fellowship offers a crash course in reporting and writing in a narrative style. Short bios and some photos of this year's class are included in our report.

AAN launched a web publishing news blog at web.aan.org last month. For more information on the blog, visit the about page, the editorial policy, and the blog style guide. Recent posts include:

• Where in the world is your website?
• From Web to Print: ‘The Onion’ a case model of reverse publishing
• Tech to Use Right Now: Tagzania: Easy, Embeddable Google Maps
• 5 Ideas In 50 Minutes to revamp your site
• Tech to Try: Dabble BD: Better online spreadsheets
• Huffington’s Theory of Publishing Promiscuity
• Concept: Three Degrees of User-Generated Content (UGC)

You'll find a preliminary convention schedule on the site, along with everything you need to know about registering for the annual confab -- including the fact that AAN member papers are once again eligible for up to two free registrations. The programming at this year's conference, which will be held June 14-16 in Portland, Ore., will focus heavily on web publishing and management training.

The first live chat will take place this Thursday, April 12, at 1 pm EDT, with subsequent sessions offered the first Thursday of each month at 1 pm. The format will sometimes be like a roundtable and other times will feature specific presenters or topics. This Thursday's session will focus on new technology and a discussion about future Webinar topics. Members with questions about the Webinars or suggestions regarding potential subjects for discussion should contact AAN Sales and Marketing Director Roxanne Cooper.

Only those members who complete a survey by Monday, April 2, will receive a copy of this valuable financial benchmarking study. For more information on the Financial Standards program, please contact the AAN office.

AAN launched a new web publishing blog today at web.aan.org. The blog is designed to be an in-depth, concrete resource on web publishing news, online innovations and journalism trends. For more information on the blog, visit the about page, the editorial policy, and the blog style guide. The blog coincides with the launch of other 2.0 AAN identities, such as the AAN MySpace account, del.ico.us account, and Flickr account. Recent posts on web.aan.org:

• Young journos fear dailies are dying
• Onion TV News Launching April ’07
• Tech to Watch: Twitter
• Small communities engage people
• How to generate traffic using social networks
• Eyetrack data: What users really see
• Fab Channel: Free, quality and LEGAL music concerts for your site
• Is it a blog if it’s being produced by a newspaper?

The Molly Ivins First Amendment Award will be presented at the AAN convention to a journalist or media figure who has taken a courageous stand challenging the preferred narrative of powerful government or private interests; whose reporting and/or commentary has had a profound impact on the public's understanding of the issue; and whose work embodies the spirit of Ivins' legacy -- speaking truth to power with wit and style. All AAN members are eligible to submit a nomination to web at aan.org. The deadline is Tuesday, April 2.