As the alternative newsweekly industry matures, competition from dailies and other media for the desirable 18-to-34 reader intensifies, E&P's Lucia Moses reports in this week's cover story. Despite the burgeoning youth-oriented offerings from daily media empires, "it may not be all that dire for alt-weeklies," she concludes. "They are a long way from being confused with dailies. They still write with more opinion and attitude, and take more risks."
An anti-trust lawyer tells NPR's Laura Sydell that the VVM-New Times deal looks like a clear anti-trust violation: "It was very public what they did, and my only feeling is they could not have had any anti-trust advice." The Bay Guardian's Tim Redmond decries the deal and compares it to the monopolization of local dailies, which, he argues, was the reason the alternative press "sprung up" in the first place. But AAN's Richard Karpel says there weren't enough ad dollars to sustain two large alternative weeklies in LA and Cleveland, and U. of Maryland j-school dean Thomas Kunkel says he was surprised by the investigation: "Anyone who is looking at the Justice Dept.'s attitude towards this sort of transaction in the near past might wonder what the fuss is about." After all, he notes, Justice didn't seem terribly disturbed as cities around the country became one-newspaper towns.
"Does the U.S. Department of Justice really have so little to do it must investigate why a couple of alternatives were folded?" E&P asks in a Nov. 25 editorial. With so many media outlets in both the Los Angeles and Cleveland markets where the two alternative weekly chains closed papers to end head-to-head competition, advertisers have plenty of places to go. "It's not an argument Justice can make with a straight face," E&P concludes.
Charles Whitaker, director of the Academy for Alternative Journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, says the Chicago dailies' two new youth-oriented weekday tabs "are neither hip, nor smart, nor in any way sophisticated." Whitaker, a former editor of Ebony, says he'd hoped the Tribune and the Sun Times would have used their considerable resources to achieve "a radical rethinking of what newspapers are and what they can be. ... Boy, was I wrong."
Lael Morgan tells E&P's Lucia Moses that buyers have been calling since Casco Bay Weekly was shuttered two weeks ago. Morgan blames the economy and the Portland Phoenix for the weekly's closure. "We haven't had a national ad since they arrived," she tells E&P.
Greg Mitchell had a silver screen moment when he parlayed his long hair into a photo shoot for the 1977 low-budget film "Between the Lines." Set in Boston at a fictitious alt-weekly, the Back Bay Mainline was obviously modeled on the two Boston papers then in a fight to the death, the Phoenix and The Real Paper. Jeff Goldblum went on to become a star after playing the Mainline's "scuzzy rock critic."
Responding to Michael Ryan's "It's Not Norman Mailer's Village Voice Anymore," which uses the anti-trust investigation of the New Times-Village Voice deal as a platform to excoriate alternative newspapers, AAN Executive Director Richard Karpel says, "The Village Voice and New Times are for-profit companies subject to the same economic rules as every other business: Their papers need to make money so they can pay employees and vendors, and if they don't they have to shut down."
Rhonda Reeves, editor and publisher of the Lexington, Ky. alt-weekly, faces charges of wanton endangerment after she was accused of striking a deputy constable with her sport-utility vehicle. "She didn't know what she was being arrested for," says Reeves' attorney, who calls the charges unfounded. According to the complaint, Reeves struck the officer as he tried to serve her with a civil summons issued when Bank One sued her for defaulting on a line of credit. Reeves has filed a response disputing the bank's claim.
Casco Bay Weekly's co-founders, Monte Paulsen and Gary Santaniello, mourn the closure of the alternative newsweekly they opened in 1988. "It was glorious," Paulsen says of the early days in Portland, Maine, when the staff delivered the paper by themselves and the photographer worked in the staff bathroom. The paper closed Nov. 21, unable to stem financial losses and fight off competition from the Portland Phoenix.
Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger and author of the syndicated sex advice column "Savage Love," paid $200 for advice icon Ann Landers' typewriter and $175 for her desk. "I want that desk and that typewriter," Savage told a Northwest Herald reporter at an auction of the late Eppie Lederer's belongings. "That's what I came for."
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