J.J. Marley likes to dabble in different creative fields, from illustration to photography to music. His varied background and his desire to "generate a good vibe" resulted in three very different Orlando Weekly covers that won a first-place 2005 AltWeekly Award. This is the 36th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
In his prepared remarks at AAN West, the founder of Craigslist said his network of Web sites, which he described as a "public trust," are about "people giving each other a break and just addressing basic everyday needs." Newmark also discussed his inchoate "citizen journalism" venture, which would employ collaborative-filtering technology to identify "the most trustworthy versions of big stories." He thinks the venture will probably drive traffic to alt-weekly Web sites. The question-and-answer session that followed was quite lively, and included an accusation of empire-building as well as a comparison between Newmark and the pilot of a B-52 bomber. Both the speech and the Q&A are available in Quicktime video or an audio-only MP3 through AAN's members-only Resource Library. A transcript of the speech is also available.
Jan Caldwell, a classified sales rep for Creative Loafing (Charlotte), is the winner of the AAN CAN trip to Peru. Caldwell won by selling the most new advertising in the AAN CAN network between Nov. 10 and Jan. 31. When notified yesterday, she reacted with disbelief, then quickly called her daughter and the friend she is planning to take with her on her trip. Caldwell may rake in other goodies as well, since some classified managers decided to make the contest more interesting by wagering items such as wine and tour books via the AAN Classified Management mailing list.
San Francisco was invaded by 261 enthusiastic newspaper professionals last weekend when the AAN West conference hit town. The highly-anticipated Saturday keynote speech by Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, passed without physical skirmish, despite a lively question-and-answer session. Many of the seminars were equally lively, and the parties -- well, you had to be there.
Don Eggert is an art director who loves deadlines: he thrives on the challenge of working against time constraints and enjoys the sense of relief that a job is done. He spent two hours, start to finish, creating his award-winning layout, "The Blogger." This is the 35th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
The 2006 AltWeekly Awards received 1554 entries from 99 member newspapers. Improvements made to the contest rules and Web site were successful in making the process less problematic. If the AAN staff is not buried alive by the onslaught of paper and FedEx boxes, we will next begin sorting entries and distributing them to the preliminary round judges.
Mara Shalhoup's award-winning feature story is a long-form narrative that often assumes the perspective of a teenage prostitute-turned-killer. It wasn't a hard article to write, Shalhoup says, and the strong response proves that readers want more stories with a human focus. This is the 34th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
By now, all newspapers planning to enter the 2005 AltWeekly Awards should have logged in to the contest site and reviewed the steps necessary to upload entries. Each entry must be registered online, regardless of whether the material itself is being entered in PDF or tearsheet format. As the midnight EST deadline approaches on Friday, the Web site may become slower, so don't wait until the last minute! Hard copies and payment must be received in the AAN office by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 24.
Tired of political rhetoric that went unchallenged, the Orlando Weekly team of Jeffrey C. Billman and J.J. Marley set about creating an annotated version of a speech by the mayor. Their format-busting work earned them an AltWeekly Award, even though Marley was rooting for a different issue to be entered. This is the 33rd in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
