"The biggest problem I have with the framing is that it's a supply-side question, which means there's hardly a wrong answer to it," says newspaper consultant Terry Garrett. The alt-weekly veteran discussed "Making Decisions in a Complex and Changing Media Market" at this year's AAN convention, and has begun a series of blog posts on the state of the alt-weekly industry as he sees it. "The implication in the subtle difference between the two choices is that you may be spending too much time on non-core business function and too little on your newspapers," he says. "The two ways to prove that is to ask demand-side questions first and to accurately measure your performance in operations against the best success standards." He lays out four key "demand-side" questions for newspapers:

  • What information do consumers want?
  • What does that information accomplish for them?
  • How do they get it?
  • Are their preferences for what they want and how they get it changing, and if so in what ways?

Continue Reading‘Newspaper’ vs. ‘Content’ Biz is a ‘False Dichotomy,’ Consultant Says

Fishbowl LA says that Jon Wiener's piece on LA Weekly and Village Voice Media is, among other things, a "cry from an old media guy in a new media world." Regarding Wiener's criticism of the paper's slight reporting on the May Day fiasco in MacArthur Park, which was his evidence of the paper's "big editorial shift to the right," Fishbowl LA points him to the internet, where the Weekly published nearly 4,000 words on the subject on top of the "330-word piece" Wiener cited. Longtime film reviewer (and current OC Weekly staffer) Luke Y. Thompson also tells Fishbowl that "the film reviews haven't been assigned out of Denver for as long as I've been a part of it," as former OC Weekly editor Will Swaim had told Wiener. Meanwhile, New Times Broward-Palm Beach columnist Bob Norman, in a letter to Romenesko, says the story "is exactly the kind of thing Village Voice Media is moving the alt-weekly world away from -- presumptuous ideological essays with much teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing but very little actual reporting or common sense."

Continue ReadingMore Reaction to The Nation’s Piece on LA Weekly

The oldest Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests still pending in the federal government were first filed two decades ago, according to the Knight Open Government Survey (pdf file) released today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The Department of State reported ten pending requests older than 15 years; other agencies with the oldest requests include the Air Force and two components of the Justice Department, the Criminal Division and the FBI. The survey also found that ten agencies have misrepresented their FOIA backlogs to Congress. One example: the Justice Department's Office of Information and Privacy -- which is leading the opposition to FOIA reform legislation -- told Congress that its oldest request was from 2003, when unresolved requests actually date back to 2001.

Continue ReadingFOIA Audit Finds Systematic Failures, Massive Delays, and No Penalties

Matt Smith writes that this week's issue of The Nation, which features Jon Wiener's lament about changes that have taken place at LA Weekly since the paper changed hands in 2006, "reads as if were (sic) a schizophrenic-produced theme issue on your host, Village Voice Media." According to Smith, the July 16 issue of the weekly magazine juxtaposes Wiener's criticisms of the "staff cuts, heavy workload and misdirected investigative talent" at VVM with "another 3,000-word-plus story whose central thrust is based largely around Village Voice Media original reporting." In the latter, Liza Featherstone uses documents revealed in April by SF Weekly as a basis for her reporting on labor boss Andy Stern.

Continue ReadingSF Weekly: The Nation ‘Call[s] Bullshit on Itself’

After a judge agreed that his case could move forward, Dallas County Constable Mike Dupree resigned yesterday during a court hearing on a petition seeking to remove him from office, the Observer reports. The suit came on the heels of reports of Dupree's misconduct -- including sexual harassment of subordinates -- that were first revealed in the alt-weekly. In a separate Dupree-related matter, the police officer accepted a plea from the Texas attorney general's office charging him with misdemeanor abuse of power.

Continue ReadingConstable Dogged by Dallas Observer Resigns

That's what Jon Wiener argues in the Nation. Wiener claims the papers' new owners at Village Voice Media no longer cover "the forces trying to make LA a more egalitarian and less polarized city," and he laments what he calls LA Weekly's "editorial shift to the right" and a move towards "hyperlocalism" and "investigative hit pieces that target local bigwigs." UPDATE: On his blog, Matt Welch begs to differ.

Continue ReadingIs it ‘The End of an Era’ at LA Weekly and OC Weekly?

Earlier this month, Aaron Silverberg, the self-proclaimed "Buddhist tennis coach," was the subject of a Seattle Weekly profile highlighting his flute playing and his reading of sensual poetry to the girls he coached at Ballard High School. Last week, Silverberg was fired, according to the Weekly. He says the school's principal told him that "no matter what, when someone sees something with young girls referring to sex, it puts me in a gray area." For its part, the Weekly wonders why it took them to bring this to the light. "Where was the oversight from Ballard administrators? Why did it take a newspaper story to make them aware of Silverberg's supposed improprieties?"

Continue ReadingSeattle Weekly Story Leads to Firing of High School Tennis Coach

Since being purchased from Village Voice Media by a consortium of investors in May, the newly independent alt-weekly has been called on to name every person with ownership interests in the paper. Originally, the Express named only Pitch Weekly founder Hal Brody, Express editor Stephen Buel, Express co-founder Kelly Vance, and Monterey County Weekly CEO Bradley Zeve. Yesterday, the paper wrote on its blog, "Lest anyone assume that we are hiding anything related to the identity of our other colleagues, we are happy to formally introduce all our investors." The remaining investors: Gary Jenkins, founding partner of Kansas City-based Punch Software; Paul Ung, Oakland resident and spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia; Rick Watkins, president of the Kansas City real estate firm Watkins & Company; and Jay Youngdahl, a Cambridge-based managing partner of The Youngdahl Law Firm.

Continue ReadingEast Bay Express Reveals Unnamed Owners

"My son is almost an Eagle Scout and I took him to the library so he could do some research on birds," 60-year-old Richard Greathouse says. While at the library, he picked up a copy of the St. Louis alt-weekly, and didn't like what he saw. "They use the 'F' word in there ... They have a gal here who is naked with two hearts on the front advertising DVDs for $2.95," he says. "I'm trying to raise my children as Christians and they've got a lot of Christian people that go to that library." But despite Greathouse's complaint to the library's director, the Riverfront Times isn't going anywhere. "If we took everything out of the library that was not suitable for children or teenagers we would have a very small collection and we would have a lot of patrons very upset," library director Pam Klipsch says. The paper's editor, Tom Finkel, says he respects Greathouse's freedom of speech to criticize the paper, and wishes he'd respect theirs. "It's kind of ironic that in a country where we can say what we want, someone would want to muzzle a voice because he thinks it doesn't conform to what he thinks a proper publication is," Finkel says.

Continue ReadingThe Riverfront Times ‘Should Not Be in a Public Place,’ Man Says