Paul Constant, who says he thinks he's "one of the only books page editors left at an alternative weekly in America," tells the Rejectionist blog how he chooses books to include in The Stranger. "Basically, I read what I want. I figure, at a page and a half a week and with a very, very small freelance budget, there's no way I'm going to do a comprehensive books page, New York Times-style," he says. "So what I think is important is to keep track of my reading life."
Music writers and editors at the Nashville Scene and Willamette Week have put together compilation albums of their respective local scenes as part of LimeWire's "Ear to the Ground" series. "There's lots of talk these days about localism being dead, but these kinds of collections remind listeners that geography still has a lot to do with an artists' sounds and aesthetics," WW music editor Casey Jarman says. "Ear to the Ground compilations are fantastic primers, and we think this is a pretty amazing primer for Portland music." Nashville Scene music editor Steve Haruch adds: "Any time we have a chance to get the word out to a wider audience about what's going on here, we jump at it." These two papers join fellow alts like Boston's Weekly Dig, Flagpole, Metro Times, and Philadelphia City Paper, all of which have previously curated discs for LimeWire. (The free digital downloads are all available here.)
Nearly two dozen media outlets in and around Madison, Wisc., took part in All Together Now's first project on health care, and the organizers are already talking about doing another project next year. Looking back, Isthmus news editor Bill Lueders offers six suggestions for news organizations in other cities who might want to take a stab at a collaborative project.
This week's New Yorker has a profile of the Pulitzer-winning L.A. Weekly food critic that has reportedly been "almost a year in the making." While the full article is available only to subscribers, here's an interesting tidbit from an abstract on the magazine's website: "To Gold's readers, his reviews have the ontological status that the New York Times has for people interested in current events: he doesn't write about it because it is, it is because he's written about it."
"For nearly ten years now, I have done my job incognito," Robb Walsh writes. "Now I am joining the ranks of no-longer-anonymous restaurant critics." He notes that fellow VVM food writers Jason Sheehan (Westword) and Jonathan Gold (L.A. Weekly) have had few problems since moving away from the time-honored tradition of being an anonymous food critic. "[I've] noticed absolutely no difference in being recognized in restaurants," Gold says. "None. Zero."
The compromise bill would allow federal judges to quash government subpoenas against reporters if they determine that the public interest in the news outweighs the government's need to uncover the source of that news, including some disclosures of classified national security information. The bill would also extend shield protection to unpaid bloggers engaged in newsgathering. "We've come a long way in these negotiations and have now reached a compromise that strikes the right balance between national security concerns and the public's right to know," Sen. Charles Schumer said in a statement. The Times notes that the compromise could still falter if press groups object to the concessions made to prosecutors. "This is a huge deal, but it's not a done deal," Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press executive director Lucy Dalglish says. "And quite honestly, until all of the media coalition members sign off on it, it's not a deal."
The Weekly's longtime art director and production manager Kevin Dougherty died at home on Oct. 21 of an apparent heart attack, the paper reports. He was 49 years old. Dougherty, who began working at the Weekly in 1994, became production manager in 1998 and also took over the art director position in 1999. In addition, he served on the executive committee that ran the paper. "Kevin was an amazing boss and coworker, a wonderful friend and an inspirational human being," says Weekly staffer Sarah Decker. "He knew how to make us laugh, and he sure knows how to make us weep. I will miss him every day of my life."
"The best newspapers maintain a wall between publishers and editors, and nothing crosses it but the budget. The Reader is no exception," Michael Miner writes. But he notes that's about to change with the hiring of James Warren -- an editorial veteran -- as the paper's new publisher. Warren, who says he hopes to "be pretty involved" on the editorial side, adds that he thinks his appointment "is an implicit affirmation of the link between quality journalism and a successful business," and Creative Loafing Inc. bosses are saying the move shows the Reader's commitment to editorial excellence. But as the paper's editor points out, it is important the business and editorial sides stay in their own corners. "It's good to hear the board and Warren acknowledging how important journalism is to the success of the company," Alison True says. "Because we're looking forward to getting the resources to support it. But if that wall disappears, so does our credibility."
A routine veto message from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may have had a hidden meaning for the bill's sponsor, according to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, which reports that if you add up the first letter of each line of the message, you get "Fuck You." The bill in question, which would have expanded the financing powers of the Port of San Francisco, was sponsored by state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who earlier this month shouted "You lie!" at the governor and told him to "Kiss my gay ass" at a fundraiser. While a Schwarzenegger spokesman maintains that the message is simply "a strange coincidence," the Guardian's findings have the political world buzzing. READ MORE coverage of the incident from ABC News, the New York Times, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal.
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