Albuquerque’s alt-weekly will be moving to new digs downtown sometime early this winter. The paper purchased the building for $600,000 from a local attorney and will now be able to consolidate offices under one roof after spending years with departments scattered in different buildings.

Continue ReadingWeekly Alibi Buys Building

The San Francisco Bay Guardian wins two first place awards in the National Newspaper Association's 2002 Better Newspaper Contest: Tali Woodward for Best Health Story, and Dan Zoll for Best Education/Literacy Story. Willy Stern of the Nashville Scene takes a first in Best Investigative or In-Depth Story or Series for his five-part dissection of The Tennessean.

Continue ReadingAAN Papers Take Three Firsts in NNA Contest

Pete Kotz, editor of the surviving alt-weekly in Cleveland, admits it's "bad form to dance on the grave of another. " Honesty, however, "runs by a less civilized code," Kotz writes of the deal between New Times and Village Voice Media last week that shuttered VVM's Cleveland Free Times and New Times Los Angeles. "The Free Times' death wasn't unexpected or sudden. It was long, slow suicide," Kotz says. And he charges David Eden, the editor, with turning the paper into "a barking poodle with no house training."

Continue ReadingSurvivor Rules Free Times’ Death a Suicide

Harold Meyerson reports that "after a bitter campaign that stunned many longtime Weekly workers," advertising and promotion personnel rejected unionization by a 15-13 vote. Meyerson says management's "campaign came straight from the pages of Union Avoidance 101" and calls the post-vote Weekly "a company with its nerves on edge. Ad reps don't speak to other ad reps; friends avoid friends."

Continue ReadingUnion Vote Leaves LA Weekly on Edge

The Village Voice/New Times deal that closed New Times Los Angeles and VVM's Cleveland Free Times, is another sign of an "imploding economy," Cynthia Cotts writes in The Village Voice. She suggests that when VVM's venture capitalist owners start looking to cash out they could find a buyer in a daily newspaper chain or another alternative media company.

Continue ReadingMedia Consolidation, Alternative-Style

The Chicago Sun-Times has plans to launch a new tabloid aimed at younger readers, perhaps by early November, Crain's Chicago Business reports. That's about the same time as its rival, the Chicago Tribune, will debut its own tab for the 18- to 34-year-old reader, which will be called RedEye. The Sun-Times' parent, Hollinger International, has ordered four of its regional newspapers to send three staffers each to Chicago to put together the new tab.

Continue ReadingChicago Dailies Battle for Young Readers

Iconoclastic alternative weeklies are doing business like the big boys, former Washington City Paper Editor David Carr writes in the New York Times. Carr reports that New Times received $8 million from Village Voice Media to close its money-losing New Times Los Angeles. "The willingness of the two ferociously competitive chains to make a deal in their common interest could mean that the next big deal by the companies could leave only one standing," Carr writes.

Continue ReadingNew Times/Village Voice Deal: Cutting Losses

Three AAN papers were awarded first-place in under 200,000 circulation division of the 2002 Association of Food Journalists competition: Robb Walsh of Houston Press for food news reporting; Marty Jones of Westword for food columns and Bonnie Boots, former food editor for the Weekly Planet (Tampa), for restaurant criticism. Willamette Week takes three awards from the foodie group, a second for restaurant criticism for Roger Porter and a second and third for special sections edited by Arts & Culture Editor Caryn Brooks.

Continue ReadingAAN Food Writers Spoon up Awards

"There were tears, but no pink slips," Publisher Dan Pulcrano says of the closing of Metro Publishing Co.'s Oakland, Calif.-based Urbanview this week. Some of the staff will shift focus to Metro's Boulevard New Media, a network of 22 e-commerce sites for major cities across the United States. That business has grown rapidly this past year, Pulcrano says.

Continue ReadingUrbanview Closes, Staff Shifts to Boulevards