Lawyers for the Seattle SuperSonics' owners don't want Sherman Alexie, the author who also pens the "Sonics Death Watch" column for the Stranger, testifying at an upcoming trial that likely will determine where the team will play next season, the Seattle Times reports. The ownership group wants to pay off the final two years of its lease at Seattle's arena and move the team to Oklahoma City for next season, while the city of Seattle is suing in federal court to force the team to fulfill the lease. "Other than being a season ticket holder, it is unclear what foundation or testimonial knowledge" Alexie would bring to the trial, the owners' lawyers claim in a motion filed Tuesday. "What is clear are his biased, profanity-laden views" about the owners, it continues. The Stranger yesterday posted a profanity-filled fake letter to the judge, which says, among other things, that "it's pig-fuckingly clear that the facts undercut Mr. Taylor's contention that Mr. Alexie is irrelevant to this case."
Luann Labedz will take over on June 2 for departing publisher Dave Schmall, chief operating officer Kirk MacDonald told the staff Thursday morning. Labedz comes to Creative Loafing after 18 years at Gannett Co., most recently as director of market development at the Citizen-Times in Asheville, N.C. During her tenure at Gannett, she was responsible for niche publications, product development, strategy and advertiser partnerships. "It's not broken here, so I want to build on that," Labedz says. "There's a great deal of energy here."
As many as 1,000 copies of last week's paper were removed from street boxes after an unflattering cover story involving local police officers was published, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. "I do believe they were stolen and, yes, I suspect someone close to the story is behind it," Weekly executive editor John Saltas says. The Tribune notes that this type of thing has happened before: "The alleged theft is reminiscent of an incident in 1997 when then-Salt Lake District Attorney Neal Gunnarson threw a stack of Weekly papers into a trash bin after the paper published an uncomplimentary story about him."
The Louisville Eccentric Observer was acquired by SouthComm Communications, a company headed by former Scene publisher Chris Ferrell, according to LEO. The change was announced to staff this morning. Pam Brooks will stay on as publisher, but other LEO staffers were not so lucky. Brooks told a local blog that editor Cary Stemle, sales director Kelly Gream, and two other employees weren't offered positions with the new company. SouthComm, which was formed late last year, owns a custom publishing company based in Atlanta, as well as various Nashville websites and magazines.
"We recently discovered that an art review by Nate Lippens published in The Stranger in August 2004 bears striking similarities to an art review by John Miller published in ArtForum in the summer of 2002," editor Christopher Frizzelle wrote last week. On advice from the Poynter Institute, the paper decided to take down and reexamine all of Lippens' stories, and will re-post the ones that are OK "as quickly as we can." When contacted by The Stranger by email, Lippens wrote: "I'm, of course, deeply embarrassed by this. I feel terrible." The next day the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported it was "looking at dozens of pieces written by Lippens" after editors discovered similarities between something he wrote for the daily and Art in America magazine. Lippens has also freelanced for Seattle Weekly, which has "found no evidence thus far of any plagiarism" in the handful of pieces he wrote for them, editor Mike Seely tells AAN News in an email.
As expected, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Marla Miller on Monday raised the amount the Weekly must pay in damages to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, from $6.3 million to $15.9 million. Miller also issued a 10-year injunction, barring the Weekly from selling display ads below cost, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. In the lawsuit, the Guardian accused the Weekly and its parent company Village Voice Media of selling ads below cost with the intent of harming the Guardian. A jury ruled in favor of the Guardian in March. SF Weekly still plans to appeal. Read more on the latest ruling from the Weekly and the Guardian.
Canada's Print Measurement Bureau recently released numbers showing a 14.2 percent drop in NOW's readership over the past two years, according to the Globe and Mail. The Canadian daily uses the readership drop as a springboard to examine the state of Toronto's alt-weeklies -- NOW and its competitor Eye Weekly, which is in the same ownership group as the daily Toronto Star. "Alt-weeklies are a particular case. Entirely reliant on advertising revenues, their revenue is not augmented by subscriptions or newsstand sales," the Globe and Mail reports. "At the same time, they're threatened by a panoply of other free offerings." NOW publisher Michael Hollett shrugs off the latest numbers, and says the paper's health is strong. "It's just one of many ways of counting," he says. "Our boxes are empty and business is good." Indeed, the Globe and Mail reports that NOW's ad revenue was up in 2007, and Hollett notes that the paper continues to innovate -- and gain readers -- online.
"While search advertising remains strong, there are signs that the growth in online advertising -- particularly in more elaborate display ads -- is slowing down," the New York Times reports. The prices for online display ads are falling as well: The prices paid for ads bought through networks dropped 23 percent from March to April, according to one index. Search ads remain popular since "they are considered cheap and effective among marketers -- even in a potential recession," according to the Times. One analyst thinks recession fears might actually help some media companies, as marketers move their budgets online. "People switch their advertising budgets out of traditional advertising formats -- TV, radio and print -- and move more online because it's got higher performance, it's cheaper and it's more measurable," Sanford C. Bernstein senior analyst Jeffrey Lindsay says.
Matt Coker, who came to Sacramento from the OC Weekly last Spring, was dismissed earlier this month, the Sacramento Bee reports. In addition, the paper's arts editor, Jonathan Kiefer, has resigned. News & Review CEO Jeff von Kaenel tells the Bee that Melinda Welsh will serve as interim editor until a permanent replacement is found. "(Melinda and I) have worked together for 20 years and we'll continue to make sure we're putting out a great paper," he says.
"Thanks primarily to a rather sensationalistic story on WREG Channel 3 Wednesday night, John Branston's City Beat column from this week's Flyer seems to be generating some controversy," writes editor Bruce VanWyngarden. In the column, Branston asks who should be "the HNIC" of Memphis City Schools, a term meaning "head [N-word] in charge" that refers to the film Lean on Me. VanWyngarden writes that, as editor, he takes responsibility for the column and the phrase. "I apologize to those who were offended by the use of the term in John's column. It was not intended as a racial slur but as a cultural reference to a very real and important decision facing our school board," he writes. "Lost in the controversy is the fact that in his column Branston asks some very pointed and relevant questions of potential superintendent candidates -- questions we ought to be asking." Nevertheless, the one source the TV station has that is upset about the whole thing is still calling for Branston to be fired.
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