Seventy thousand copies of Miami Herald's faux alternative were yanked off the streets and within 24 hours were replaced with a new version that deleted an unflattering satirical portrait of local developer Stuart Miller. The Herald's general counsel tells Miami New Times' Tristram Korten that the issue was "withdrawn for legal reasons," but Korten reports that it may have had more to do with management's sensitivity to Miller, whose family and powerful friends lashed out last year at the Herald in response to a column written by New Times alum Jim DeFede.

The news rack situation in the Big Apple may go from bad to worse, according to Matt Taibbi. The city recently began enforcing a hodgepodge of new regulations governing the use and placement of news racks, and citations are already piling up: New York Press received dozens within a few weeks, and USA Today reports that about 20 percent of its racks have already been ticketed. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg is pursuing a street-furniture proposal that may reward Clear Channel or JCDecaux with a lucrative contract to replace proprietary news racks with city-mandated pedmounts.

"What should every visitor know about Los Angeles?" American Way Magazine asks Drew Barrymore. To which the 28-year-old actress and film producer responds, "Always start with the LA Weekly. It's a free newspaper you can find at certain stores or newsstands and it will tell you everything you want to know about what's going on that week." Ummm, that’s free alternative newspaper, Drew.

Eight months after Salt Lake City's alternative paper did a major expose of real estate fraud, the Salt Lake Tribune trotted out the same story and packaged it as original, Shane McCammon writes. An ethics guru tells McCammon, "I think most honorable organizations will give a nod to the original publication” but the Tribune's Terry Orme shrugs it off and says, “We always feel we do it better than other media outlets.”

The Seattle Times has agreed to release the full text of depositions conducted in its lawsuit with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's owner, The Hearst Corp. The Times and Hearst had previously released only excerpts from the transcripts in the dispute over their joint operating agreement. Seattle Weekly yesterday made a court request for the documents. "The important thing is they are going to get released, and everybody's going to be able to have a closer look at how the JOA's been managed," Chuck Taylor, Seattle Weekly's managing editor, told the Post-Intelligencer.