The memo that was the subject of Jason Vest's article for many Association of Alternative Newsweeklies papers is published here. The memo writer begins by emphasizing the positive: the sincere gratitude of the Iraqis and bustling commerce in Baghdad. But he warns that the Coalition Provisional Authority is isolated by its "security bubble" and must be careful not to project weakness to insurgents and corrupt Governing Council members. The memo writer, whose name was redacted in the text Vest obtained, warns that it would be "a grave mistake to transfer authority to the United Nations." He claims that an audit of the UN oil-for-food system has already uncovered "serious wrongdoing in banks, and discrepancies of billions of dollars." AAN is making the memo available because of high reader interest and the number of media queries that have come in since Vest's article was posted.
The postwar stabilization of Iraq is not going well, a Coalition Provisional Authority official wrote in a memo in early March. The result: "Baghdadis have an uneasy sense that they are heading towards civil war." The memo describes corruption within the Iraqi Governing Council, resentments about the centralization of power in Baghdad, insufficient security in the Green Zone where CPA officials stay, and black-market sales of U.S.-supplied weapons by Iraqi police. Investigative reporter Jason Vest obtained a copy of the memo from a Western intelligence official and was commissioned to write an article about it for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. His piece, "Fables of the Reconstruction," is being published simultaneously on the Web sites of scores of AAN papers.
Seattle Weekly writers bash George W. Bush, but the president might take some consolation in the generous contributions he gets by way of the paper's co-owner, Goldman Sachs. The financial investment company's employees "have donated $436,199 to Bush over the course of the president's political career -- and a startling $301,225 in this year's election cycle alone," Josh Feit reports in The Stranger. Goldman Sachs is one of three investors in the Weekly's parent company, Village Voice Media.
Metro International, which already has free dailies in Boston, Philadelphia and Europe, is expected to launch a New York edition May 5. Executives are also eyeing expansion into San Francisco and Washington, Jon Fine reports in AdAge. Some advertisers aren't persuaded of the value of these and similar free dailies, which appear to have been "hastily assembled with scissors and a pot of glue," according to Fine. The risk of losing ads is borne by alternative weeklies, he reports, quoting Jane Levine, executive vice president of Chicago Reader, about the impact.
A story by investigative reporter Jason Vest will be published on scores of AAN newspaper Web sites, beginning at 10 a.m. EDT Tuesday, April 20, Editor & Publisher reports. The 3,000-word article quotes from a "closely held" memo by a U.S. government official that "offers a candid assessment of Iraq's bleak future," reports E&P, which obtained a copy of the story Monday. Vest is senior correspondent for American Prospect. He was honored as an "Unsung Hero of Washington Journalism" by the American Journalism Review in 2002.
The Phoenix Media/Communications Group has purchased the monthly music magazine founded in 1987 and will begin publishing it again in May, the Portland Press Herald reports. Beginning last year, FACE had been distributed in The Maine Weekly (formerly Casco Bay Weekly). But in February the Weekly's owner, Maine Publishing, filed for bankruptcy. Media holdings of the Phoenix group include three AAN papers, The Boston Phoenix, The Portland Phoenix and The Providence Phoenix.
Noticing that The Washington Times hadn't run a single correction in nine days, City Paper editor Erik Wemple decided to provide that service in his own pages. Wrong name, wrong block, wrong date of crime: Such errors will be duly noted and corrected in the alt-weekly. City Paper will "manage this critical function," Wemple writes, because the Times "lacks the resources to run its own corrections."
The copying didn't go undetected because The Village Voice Online has too many readers in Canada. A former teaching assistant called the Toronto Star to point out that the narrative structure and phrasing in Prithi Yelaja's story about U.S. Army deserter Brandon Hughey reminded him of what he'd read in the New York City alt-weekly two days earlier. Star ombudsman Don Sellar reports that nearly a third of the Star article was rooted in a Village Voice story by Alisa Solomon. The remorseful Yelaja called Solomon to apologize.
On the heels of March's surge in job creation, a series of media-company financial reports in recent days indicate that help-wanted pages in newspapers are swelling again, further sign that the labor market has turned the corner.
Amy Jenniges, a reporter for The Stranger, was denied a marriage license to legalize her relationship with her longtime lesbian partner. To make a point about the so-called sanctity of marriage, Jenniges' gay editor, Dan Savage, asked if he could get a license to marry her. Because the two met the man-woman criterion, the King County Clerk's office granted the license. Savage told Matt Markovich of KOMO 4 News in Seattle that he and the woman he doesn't love planned to stay married just 55 hours and 10 minutes in order to best Britney Spears.
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