"When David Brewster started the Weekly, I thought it was a fabulous idea because Seattle didn't have anything like the New Yorker but it's a rather sophisticated city," Alan Furst told The Stranger in an interview last month. Furst says that when Brewster approached him about writing for the paper, he was told he could write about anything, so he decided he wanted to write a football column. "The Nordstrom family had just bought the franchise for the Seahawks, and they brought in and unwrapped a brand-new team and there I was up in the press box, eating free hot dogs. It was great!"

Continue ReadingNovelist Remembers the Early Days of the Seattle Weekly

That's the impression that BNET's David Weir got at last month's AAN Convention. "As those big guys crumble, it's an opportunity for us," an unnamed publisher tells him. "We know that they are stuck halfway between print and the web. And now they have to figure out what to do about mobile. They have far more resources than we do, but they also are much more bureaucratic."

Continue ReadingAlts ‘More Nimble’ Than Dailies When it Comes to Social Media

"Somebody broke into the Bay Guardian parking lot last night, rammed through the chain-link fence and drove away with our van," Guardian executive editor Tim Redmond writes. "Kinda crazy -- it's ten years old, it's all beat up -- and it has the Guardian logo all over it and a Best of the Bay mural on the side. Hard to hide."

Continue ReadingSan Francisco Bay Guardian’s Van is Stolen

The Vancouver Humane Society is trying to take its campaign against calf roping to Canada's biggest rodeo, the Calgary Stampede, but the group has had a hard time placing their anti-roping ad. It was rejected by the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun, but the ad -- which is not particularly shocking -- will run in Fast Forward Weekly. The Sun's publisher tells the CBC the ad is in "bad taste" and that the Vancouver Humane Society is "out of its jurisdiction." Fast Forward publisher Ian Chiclo disagrees. "As long as there are no legal issues, we're not in the business of muzzling advertisers," he tells AAN News. "The Calgary Stampede is a great event for the city, but groups should be allowed to express their opinion about the event."

Continue ReadingFast Forward Weekly Accepts Ad That Calgary’s Dailies Won’t Run

Kirk MacDonald, who was also COO of Creative Loafing Inc., is leaving the company to rejoin the Denver Newspaper Agency, which controls the business operations of the Denver Post, as executive vice president for sales, marketing, and digital sales. MacDonald, who joined the Reader in September 2008, says CL CEO Ben Eason will take over the COO duties temporarily, and that a new publisher will be named for the Reader.

Continue ReadingChicago Reader Publisher Steps Down

Publicola was started in January by Josh Feit, a former news editor of The Stranger, to cover state and local politics in a time where fewer reporters are ensconced in state houses across the country. Feit has attracted some "significant" money, and recently hired another Stranger alum, Erica Barnett, as a full-time staff reporter.

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Alums Come Together at Seattle News Website

Drex Heikes, who served the Los Angeles Times for 18 years as the Sunday magazine's editor and foreign affairs editor in the paper's Washington bureau, has been named L.A. Weekly's next editor. He will start in August. The position will allow a homecoming of sorts for Heikes: He left L.A. in 2005 to work at the Las Vegas Sun, which recently won a Public Service Pulitzer for an investigation he assigned and edited. "Village Voice Media publishes vital newspapers because it has upheld the vision of its founding editor, Mike Lacey," Heikes says. "Mike is a reporter at heart. His mission has never wavered. First you report, and you report hard. Then you write -- and you do it as a storyteller."

Continue ReadingLongtime Los Angeles Journo Coming Home to Edit L.A. Weekly