"It's a newsroom in a lot of upheaval and unhappiness," Senior Editor Brian Parks tells Sridhar Pappu, who reports that the "rejiggering has only worsened an already troubled relationship between the staff and management." The complaints come from writers who have less space to write in and who felt left out of the redesign process. Voice Editor Don Forst says morale at the paper is fine and calls the implementation of the redesign "perfect." Pappu also reports that the Voice "had a pretax profit margin of 27.2 percent, according to an internal management source." (Second item.)
David Bernstein and Adam Reilly have both been hired to replace Seth Gitell, who left in May to become Mayor Tom Menino's press secretary, reports Boston Magazine's James Burnett. The double-hire also helps to address a vacancy created when Dorie Clark left the paper to serve as a spokesperson on Howard Dean's campaign. The Phoenix has been "a longtime incubator for well-known national political scribes," says Burnett, who lists Joe Klein, Sid Blumenthal, Michael Crowley and Ted Widmer among the paper's distinguished alumnus.
Steve May and his wife Cherry Fisher May are picking a fight where other publishers might fear to tread, readying themselves for head- to-head competition with Gannett. Beginning this Friday, they will begin publishing an alternative newsweekly in Lafayette, La., where Gannett owns both the daily newspaper, The Daily Advertiser, and its 23-year-old weekly, The Times of Acadiana. The Mays used to own The Times, and their anger over what it has become is fueling their launch of a paper they have pointedly named The Independent. "Gannett has destroyed The Times," Steve May says. "These guys are Sears managers who have a one- size-fits-all approach to local publishing."
After publishing more than 750 consecutive issues, the Flyer was forced to skip an edition when a July 22 storm shut the city down. The blend of heavy rains and powerful winds forced three employees from their homes, including Publisher Ken Neill, who had an 100 foot oak tree fall on his house, rendering it uninhabitable until Christmas. The national press, focused on Uday and Qusay, barely noticed the storm. "We have a joke," Neill says. "If a tree falls in Memphis, does it make a sound?"
And they're celebrating with a special issue and a public birthday bash in a park across the street from the paper's new office building. In addition to a rear-view mirror look at the paper's coverage of educational and environmental issues, this week's Indy includes features like "Top Ten Reasons the Independent Must Die" (No. 4: "They're sex-crazed, amoral sodomists.") and, for connoisseurs of the publisher's occasionally garbled syntax, "Top Ten John Weissisms" (No. 1: "We're growing like hotcakes!").
Arnold Schwarzenegger is grabbing all the headlines, so few may have noticed that Gary Coleman is also running for the Golden State's top job. According to CNN.com, Coleman's candidacy was engineered by New Times' paper in Berkeley "in protest of the scheduled vote aimed at recalling Gov. Gray Davis." Editor Steve Buel, Coleman's campaign treasurer, says he collected the 65 petition signatures necessary to place the former child star on the ballot at a recent Oakland A's game. Even though he's throwing his own hat in the ring, Coleman says he's voting for Schwarzenegger and admits, "I'm probably the least qualified for the job, but I'll have some great people around me."
About 75 percent of the members of Local 2110 signed a letter to VVM management declaring their "profound outrage and disgust" at last month's cuts, which they chalk up to "greed on the part of the paper's owners." Sadness and paranoia now rule at the paper, says Cynthia Cotts, who also reports that two of the seven employees originally laid off have been hired back. More controversy may be just around the corner: Cotts reports that "many staffers dislike the redesign that debuts in next week's issue."
When the free weekday tabloid Express debuted Monday morning, the City Paper and its band of merry pranksters were prepared, hawking 10,000 copies of its own Expresso at subway stops across the nation's capital. The City Paper parodists, led by Webmeister Dave Nuttycombe, "anticipated the journalistic emptiness of Express," according to Slate's Jack Shafer, who says the Post's new lite version "ladles the news out with an eyedropper into tiny text boxes and then flattens it with a steamroller." Also revealed: The editor of Express is none other than Dan Caccavaro, former editor of AAN-member Valley Advocate.
Vivian Gornick told a "stunned" audience at a creative nonfiction seminar that she used "composite" characters for some of her pieces that ran in the Village Voice, reports Terry Greene Sterling. Gornick, who wrote for the Voice from 1969 to 1977, also admitted making up scenes and conversations in "Fierce Attachments," a memoir chronicling her relationship with her mother. Voice Editor Don Forst says Gornick "wouldn't do that under my editorship. If she did it once that would be the end of it."
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