Ronnie Virgets and his loved ones stomped the competition and will return for tomorrow's episode of the TV game show, according to Michael Tisserand, Virget's ex-editor at Gambit. "The whole family wore crawfish beads and the host (John O'Hurley) announced that they were from New Orleans, 'America's most resilient city,'" reports Tisserand, who also touts Virgets latest book, "Lost Bread," which includes his account of being rescued from the top of his house after Katrina. "I think that account is the best descriptive writing about Katrina that's been published anywhere," says Tisserand.

Continue ReadingGambit Weekly Columnist and Family on Family Feud

The annual staff-training conferences will be held Jan. 26-27 and Feb. 16-17. The earlier weekend date is reserved for AAN West, which will be held for the first time at the Miyako Hotel in San Francisco's Japantown. Meanwhile, AAN East will return to the Hotel Washington and its remarkable view of the White House. Programming details and registration materials for both conferences will be ready next week.

Continue ReadingAAN East, West Dates Announced

Shabiroon Jumaralli (pictured) and Jarrett Keohokalole, recipients of 2006 AAN Diversity Internship grants, contributed far more to their papers than their names and the cachet of diversity. For two months, Jumaralli served as sole staff photographer while Atlanta's Creative Loafing was filling the position. And Keohokalole proved a journalist of all trades at the Honolulu Weekly, where he distinguished himself in articles capturing the distinct flavor of island politics. Both interns applied their educations not just on the job but on the run, learning things, as Keohokalole put it, that you can't learn in a classroom.

Continue ReadingInterns Render Mission-Critical Assistance

Alternative weeklies are raring to lead the way in online journalism, if AAN's Web Publishing Conference this past weekend was any evidence. More than 120 publishing professionals attended the Oct. 6-7 meeting, titled Perestroika, girding themselves for the day their papers move entirely off newsprint and into cyberspace.

Continue ReadingWall Between Print and Web Publishing Topples at Perestroika

A 15-year veteran of D.C.-based publications, Davolt (pictured) will be responsible for the content of AAN.org and AltWeeklies.com. He served as a writer and editor at the Washington Business Journal from 1999-2005, followed by a stint at Employee Benefit News. Davolt is eager to bring his diverse experience to bear on his new job. "Given the forces of darkness arrayed against the free press right now, this is an exciting time to support alternative newsweeklies," he says.

Continue ReadingAAN Hires New Editor

Sixty AAN members and 83 film-industry clients attended the Sept. 14 "AANtourage" reception on the roof of the Bel Age hotel in Los Angeles. The event was so successful that publishers and ad buyers continued the party afterward in the hotel bar. In a post-event survey, 100 percent of respondents thus far said that AANtourage was a success.

Continue ReadingAAN Film-Industry Event Gets Rave Reviews

Tasha Ho-Sang (pictured) parlayed an insightful letter to the editor into a summer internship at the Philadelphia City Paper, with funding assistance from AAN's Diversity Internship program. Ho-Sang had a wealth of story ideas, and during her two months at the alt-weekly she was able to develop a few of those ideas into successful articles. "Stories she pitched came from a realm that we wouldn't have found if we hadn't had the chance to bring Tasha on," Managing Editor Brian Hickey says.

Continue Reading2006 Diversity Internship Recipient Offers a Fresh Perspective

In briskly paced sessions, the two-day Web Publishing Conference will cover everything AAN members need to know about the Web: revenue models; online advertising operations and technology; user-generated content; multimedia; search-engine optimization; social networking; Web analytics; usability best practices; wireless Internet; legal issues; and writing and editing for the Web. The October 5-7 meeting in San Francisco will also feature big-picture overviews, vendor presentations and member roundtables. The deadline for reduced rates is Sept. 12.

Continue ReadingAAN Conference Offers Crash Course in the Web

The newly announced schedule includes several confirmed speakers: Thomas Burke, a lawyer with the firm Davis Wright Tremaine; Xavier Casanova, CEO of Perenety; Bruce Dobie, owner of Dobie Media LLC; Bowen Dwelle of AdMonsters; Michael Gold and Susan West of WestGold Editorial; R. Scott Horner, co-owner of Swarm Interactive; Thomas Kenney, president of Verve Wireless, Inc.; and Dave Morgan, the founder and chairman of Tacoda Systems. Additional speakers and seminars for the October conference may be added at a later date.

Continue ReadingProgram Announced for Web Publishing Conference