"These days, compliments about City Pages are as rare as pro-R.T. Rybak stories during [Steve] Perry's 13-year tenure as editor," Brauer writes on MinnPost.com. But he thinks that despite the paper's "obvious problems" in the Village Voice Media era, the piling-on is unfair. "The beat-down has become so relentless that the good things aren't being acknowledged," he writes. The most recent staffer to depart, reporter Paul Demko, agrees. "I see people here doing a lot of good work and hard work and -- whatever the failings of the paper -- that also needs to be acknowledged," he tells Brauer. "It pisses me off when I think about some jackass on [the local blog] MnSpeak talking about how worthless the paper is." In the rest of the nearly-3,000 word piece, Brauer looks at everything from the recent City Pages stories that have generated the most web traffic to what he sees as the paper's remaining weaknesses.
The Maricopa County sheriff "reacted with bluster" to the news that he was named in a suit filed yesterday by Phoenix New Times, the Arizona Republic reports. "They can't take their own medicine, so they have to be like crybabies and file a lawsuit against the sheriff and the county attorney," Arpaio says. "So you know what? I welcome the lawsuit. I welcome being sued. They're going to have to answer a lot of questions." Arpaio also defended the rationale behind the original probe. "It became a problem when they put my name illegally on the web," he says. "And that became a problem for me and my family. A big problem." New Times founder Michael Lacey defended the suit, calling the actions of Arpaio and the other defendants "unprecedented. ... They locked up journalists for something they've written, not for something they've withheld," he says.
Bob Bierman, whose "Bierman's Corner" was a "staple feature" in Monday Magazine, died in the hospital on April 17, four days after suffering a massive stroke, the Globe and Mail reports. He was 86 years old. Bierman was best known for being sued for libel by a British Columbia cabinet minister in the late 1970s. He leaves his wife Angelina, two sons, and two grandchildren.
The city's Board of Aldermen is currently considering an ordinance that would require news organizations to obtain permits to place news boxes in public areas, the New Haven Advocate reports. Publishers would pay $25 for a three-year permit, and $12 per box. "In this climate, every dollar counts," Advocate publisher Josh Mamis says. He says that the new fees could lead to publishers having to pull distribution in areas with the least pick-up. "It's an issue of getting information to all the people of the city," says Mamis. Under the proposed legislation, the power to remove boxes deemed "obstructions" to the right of way would fall to the Public Works Department, which also worries Mamis. "You have to be concerned with the implications of that, should you be aggressively covering the Department of Public Works or the administration," he says.
The PEN American Center named Laura Berg as the recipient of this year's prestigious PEN/Katherine Anne Porter First Amendment Award. Berg, who faced a sedition investigation after writing a letter to the editor of the Alibi criticizing the Bush Administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War, will receive the $10,000 prize at a gala tonight in New York City. "When Laura Berg sat down to write her letter to the editor, she was enacting her most basic constitutional right and affirming our national faith that exercising this right is an act of patriotism and civic engagement," PEN Freedom to Write program director Larry Siems says in a release. "That her letter was greeted instead as a threat to overthrow the government shows just how far we deviated from our national values in the years following 9/11." The New York Times applauded the PEN Center's decision, editorializing this weekend that Berg was "well chosen" to receive award.
"In some sense, getting fired from the Voice was maybe the best thing to happen in my career," Nathan Lee tells Rotten Tomatoes. "Before I wrote for the Voice, a certain number of people were familiar with my work ... But I think having been able to write at the Voice for about a year and a half, I got to show a lot of people what I could really do. Because you can write at length and it's very unfettered; you can sort of say whatever you want, and I did." He says he's been fielding a lot of freelance offers since he was dismissed in March. When asked about the nationwide trend of the "disappearing critic," Lee doesn't mince words. "I mean, it's really sad that all these film critics are losing their jobs, but I think most film criticism is terrible. And not useful. And frankly, really boring."
Luke Y. Thompson has a role in Wicked Lake, a horror film premiering this weekend in Hollywood. According to IMDB's roll call of cast members, Thompson plays "Half-Idiot." The film was written by Adam Rockoff, directed by Zach Passero, and features music by Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen.
Jackie Walker, a Knoxville-area high school football star and all-American linebacker at Tennessee in 1970-71, will be posthumously inducted into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame July 17. "The city and the university were reminded of his distinguished career last fall," the New York Times reports, after an article in Metro Pulse "introduced Walker to a new audience and asked a pointed question: Had his sexual orientation denied him Hall of Fame recognition?" Metro Pulse editor Coury Turczyn tells AAN News that the original piece, by Betty Bean, "most definitely put things in motion," adding that "several of the interview subjects were made aware of the issue in the process of being asked about it," including people "who nominate athletes for various halls of fame." Read more on Walker's induction from Metro Pulse.
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