Auto advertising has been a tough nut for alternative newsweeklies to crack. AAN News asks ad directors how they won over these conservative, set-in-their-ways auto dealerships. Some say they're getting this lucrative business with a combination of special sections and savvy sales reps. Auto dealers are opening up to the alternative weekly market, but they want familiar relationships and a lot of bang for their buck, they say.
In a complaint filed with the Oregon Attorney General, Portland Mercury Publisher Rob Crocker claims a Willamette Week ad rep offered one of his advertisers a special rate contingent on stopping advertising in the Mercury, the Portland Tribune reports. WW Publisher Richard Meeker tells Tribune that his newspaper does not have such policies and that the situation was merely "an isolated incident" and a mistake.
In an interview with townonline.com, Boston Phoenix media critic Dan Kennedy says he's a "bit ambivalent" about leaving the Phoenix to write a book for Rodale on raising children with dwarfism. " I think everyone in the business wants to write a book at one time or another," Kennedy tells the community webzine. "But what do we do? Writers write. " Kennedy has a 9-year-old daughter with the genetic condition achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism.
Unable to pay the printer to publish last week's issue, Yesse! Communications President and Bloomington Independent Publisher Craig Hitchcock announced Friday that the paper would "suspend operations ... with the hope of restarting in March." Hitchcock tells the Bloomington Herald-Times that a post-Sept. 11 decline in advertising revenue of 15-20 percent forced his hand. The closure leaves Yesse! with two papers, Dayton, Ohio's Impact Weekly and Springfield's Illinois Times.
The San Francisco Bay Guardian has axed its highly paid "Ask Isadora" sex advice column, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Isadora Alman tells the Chronicle's Dan Fost that she "didn't see it coming." The Chronicle also reports that the Bay Guardian has had layoffs and is reducing its leased space during this rough economic environment for media companies.
Since Sept. 11, several states have proposed or passed legislation that would weaken Freedom of Information laws. The Society of Professional Journalists has issued an alert to its members and other First Amendment advocates, warning of these threats to the public's right to access government documents. The Freedom Forum offers a round-up of this legislation across the country.
Erik Wemple, a former Washington City Paper senior editor, returns to become editor, the paper announces today. Wemple replaces Howard Witt, who left the paper for the Washington bureau of the Chicago Tribune. Richard Byrne, interim editor and media columnist, is leaving the paper to become executive editor of TheGlobalist.com.
Miami New Times sleuths crack the case of the vanishing alternative newsweeklies. The paper wrote a critical story about Eduardo Padron, president of Miami-Dade Community College, and suddenly reports roll in about empty news racks on all the campuses. A 72-year-old journalism student finally produces a smoking gun: he says he was with a security officer who scooped up the papers. The guard sheepishly admitted Padron had ordered security to confiscate them, the student says.
Ron Curran, a veteran writer and editor for LA Weekly and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, plans to launch a new alternative syndicate in the spring. The service, to be called Pulp Syndicate, takes aim at non-profit AlterNet, but Don Hazen, AlterNet’s executive editor, isn’t too worried. "We look forward to whatever healthy competition they might provide," Hazen says.
Debbie Eason, founder of the Creative Loafing chain of alternative newsweeklies, is planning a new venture after selling the chain to her children. She intends to launch a new paper, either weekly or biweekly, covering intown western Atlanta, appropriately called West Side Story, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. She tells the daily her new paper won't compete with Creative Loafing-Atlanta.
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