John Sugg wasn't too pleased to receive a call from an FBI agent telling him he was "all over the wiretaps" the agency had made of fired University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian. Judging from the cover of Weekly Planet Tampa, Sugg even feels a little defiant; he's not naming any confidential sources. The former editor of the Planet and now senior editor of Creative Loafing Atlanta is on the FBI's tapes because he's been covering the investigation of the accused mastermind of terrorism Al-Arian for eight years. In a story for the Planet, Sugg reflects on disclosures he's made about officials working on the government's case.

Continue ReadingFBI Wants to Know Alt-Weekly Reporter’s Sources

King County Executive Ron Sims had to race ahead with his plan to challenge state law prohibiting gay marriage after the editor of The Stranger showed up at the courthouse on March 5 seeking a marriage license. Bob Young reports in The Seattle Times that gay marriage proponents wanted to have "hand-picked couples" challenge the law but feared the controversial author of the sex advice column Savage Love (pictured) might beat them to it.

Continue ReadingOfficials Didn’t Want Dan Savage to Be Marital Test Case

According to statistics released yesterday from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), U.S. music shipments from record companies to retail outlets declined 4.3 percent in 2003 and unit shipments declined 2.7 percent. Sounds bad, but compared to 2002, where music shipments declined 6.8 percent and unit shipments went down 7.8 percent, it seems like the decline rate is slowing down. The year 2003 was important for the recording industry, with record companies offering consumers the widest choice and variety of ways to access music, including through satellite radio and webcasting streams,exclusive release deals, different pricing strategies, new formats and value-added CD/DVD combinations in retail outlets.

Continue ReadingMusic Shipments Decline in 2003

A spokesperson for the digital paper says it's obligated not to publish things that would offend "the reasonable sensibilities of our readers," Editor & Publisher reports. Rall believes the cartoon was dropped because of e-mail campaigns by conservatives. His award-winning cartoon appears in several AAN papers, including The Village Voice and Washington City Paper.

Continue ReadingNYTimes.com Drops Ted Rall Cartoon Due to Tone

More people are reading daily newspapers, but in 2003 they spent a minute less on the weekday paper and seven minutes less on the Sunday paper than they did the previous year. Readership continues to drop in the 18- to 24-year-old age group "despite fresh efforts by many papers to reach younger readers," Editor & Publisher reports. Highest readership was found among African Americans and those 65 and older. Findings are from a survey by the Readership Institute, a division of the Media Management Center at Northwestern University.

Continue ReadingNewspaper Readership Down among Youth

Rather than just deliver the same old reliable features and columns every week, editors of AAN papers look for ways to tweak their content, thus attracting new readers and re-engaging the faithful. But there's no sense rounding up a focus group to predict what new ingredients will work when freelancers, staff and the guy on the next barstool are all eager to give their advice. John Dicker interviews editors of four weeklies who messed with the mix to get happy results.

Continue ReadingAAN Editors Think Local in Adding Content

Following an industry trend, the Arizona alt-weekly went down to 25 inches wide, from 27. At the same time it rearranged sections and added more music coverage, editor Jimmy Boegle announces in a special anniversary issue. Although columnists will be allotted 150 to 200 fewer words, the theory that readers don't like longer articles is "full of crap," Boegle says, and word counts in most news and arts stories will remain the same. AAN associate member Katherine Topaz of Topaz Design did the redesign.

Continue ReadingTucson Weekly Whittles Off a Few Inches As It Turns 20