A new Chicago Tribune tabloid aimed at younger readers could launch by the end of the month, Trib columnist Jim Kirk writes. The newsstand-only tab has a working title of "RedEye" and will feature a combination of entertainment writing and listings as well as shorter news stories than the broadsheet daily, Kirk writes.

Continue Reading“RedEye” Set to Launch

Village Voice Media paid NT Media more than $1 million to close New Times Los Angeles, sources tell the Los Angeles Times. New Times paid VVM a lesser amount to shutter Cleveland Free Times, the daily reports. An anti-trust lawyer says the transaction, negotiated quietly over the past three months, "could raise rather interesting antitrust issues."

Continue ReadingNew Times, VVM Cut Deal, Close Papers

By a two-vote margin, LA Weekly's advertising and promotional staff voted not to join the union that represents editorial employees, the Los Angeles Times reports. The close vote and hard-fought campaign have opened wounds Publisher Beth Sestanovich says she wants to heal.

Continue ReadingLA Weekly Ad Staff Rejects Union

Taffy Akner interviews New York Press Editor John Strausbaugh for mediabistro.com and finds it "hard to tell if Strausbaugh is the coolest dude ever... or the world's biggest geek." Conclusion? Whatever, he's a rock star.

Continue ReadingStrausbaugh’s a “Rock Star”

Can Gannett Co. create alternatives to itself? Burl Gilyard, himself a former alt-weekly staff writer, looks into Gannett's plans to launch entertainment weeklies in Lansing, Mich., and Boise, Idaho, for AJR. Berl Schwartz, editor of the alt-weekly City Pulse in Lansing, says Gannett's targeting these small markets because it "wants to feed on the guppies before it heads to the deeper waters."

Continue ReadingGannett’s “Alternatives”

Katy Reckdahl wins a 2002 Casey Journalism Center Medal for Distinguished Coverage of Children and Family Issues. Her award in the non-daily newspaper category is for her "full and compelling report on the troubled Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth" that appeared last year in Gambit Weekly, the center's release states. The series won a first-place in the news feature category of the Alternative Newsweekly Awards.

Continue ReadingGambit’s Reckdahl Honored for Juvenile Justice Series

Ads for apartments have skyrocketed in the past year, Chicago Reader Classifieds Manager Brett Murphy tells Crain's Chicago Business. The jump has fueled 25 percent growth in ad volume at a time when help-wanted ads are down, and landlords who once took out a single ad to find a tenant now run one for many weeks, he tells the business newspaper.

Continue ReadingChicago Real Estate Ad Market Booming

LA Weekly has named Natalie Cole, formerly director of sales development and general merchandise for the Los Angeles Times, associate publisher. Cole is the third former LA Times ad executive hired in the past month by LA/OC Weekly Publisher Beth Sestanovich, who is herself a former advertising director for the Times.

Continue ReadingLA Weekly Names Cole Associate Publisher

Mrs. Portland Mercury contestant Bethany Miller filled her stomach with "colorful, smelly and chunky" food items, chased with ipecac, then visited The Mercury's office in time to hurl in the kitchenette. Her beef: the mocking tone the alt-weekly took about its own contest. "People were really mean, and they didn't encourage an atmosphere of fun," Miller tells Willamette Week. [Illustration by Carson Ellis.]

Continue ReadingMrs. Congeniality Pukes in Mercury’s Kitchen

About 120 religious activists turned out last week to protest a "blasphemous" cartoon published in the Chicago Reader, reports The Illinois Leader, which bills itself "Illinois' Conservative News Source." The cartoon in question implied immoral behavior by the Virgin Mary, the pope and Jesus, the newspaper says.

Continue ReadingCatholics Protest Reader’s Cartoon