Former St. Petersburg Times staffers are set to launch St. Pete Weekly, an alternative paper that's due to hit the streets Nov. 7. Although the well-entrenched Weekly Planet also publishes in the Tampa Bay area, Publisher Dean Capone says there's plenty of room for another alternative.

Continue ReadingNew Weekly Launched in St. Petersburg

Newspaper companies in the District of Columbia, including Washington City Paper, reached a voluntary agreement with downtown business officials on newsracks. Under the agreement, publishers will use demonstration sites to test three different rack systems to see which one works best.

Continue ReadingThinking Outside the Newsbox

A couple of weeks ago Lee Enterprise's daily paper in Missoula changed the publication day of its weekend section and started to distribute it as a free, stand-alone paper. In a publisher's note, Missoula Independent's Matt Gibson says the move is "a transparent attempt by the Missoulian to impede the growth" of his paper, and calls it unethical, anti-competitive and "probably illegal". He promises that Lee is "going to find themselves in a fight so fierce and unrelenting, they’ll wish they’d picked on somebody their own size."

Continue ReadingAAN Publisher Says Daily Puts Bulls-Eye on His Back

Lisa Chamberlain, editor of Cleveland Free Times, tells JournalismJobs.com that alt weeklies thrive because mainstream media is "so neutered, so buttoned down and so devoid of any personality that people simply cannot relate to it." She says alternative papers have "grown up without losing our edge" and calls alternative journalism "one of the last places left to do really in-depth, hard-hitting work."

Continue ReadingEditor Says Alternatives Cover Stories That Other Papers Neglect

The brother of a Philadelphia City Paper employee was twice barred from boarding a United Airlines flight for Phoenix recently. The reason apparently was his choice of reading material: the first time he carried Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey, which had a picture of explosives of the cover. The second time it was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Continue ReadingBooks Keep Man off Planes

Two former New Times employees write in the Daily Business Review about staff unrest at New Times Broward-Palm Beach. According to Julie Kay and Harris Meyer, the NTB-PB staff wrote a "manifesto" to Editor Chuck Strouse asking for greater editorial independence, among other things.

Continue ReadingReflections on a “Mutiny” Observed