Berl Schwartz thanks the AAN membership for admitting City Pulse on Saturday in a letter to the editor. "This was our fourth time to apply, and I am sure the membership committee was tired of looking at us, so allow me to thank you on behalf of its members as well," he writes. He also says he's printing a banner to hang in the paper's office that quotes from a membership committee report on City Pulse: "It's still not perfect."

Continue ReadingCity Pulse Publisher Says ‘Thank You’

In a letter to AAN News, ex-OC Weekly editor Will Swaim maintains that The Nation's "[Jon] Wiener did a fine job" conveying the paper's "loss ... of independence" under Village Voice Media, but claims that Wiener got at least one thing wrong. "[The article reports that] I told Jon Wiener that OC Weekly's film coverage was run out of Denver. I didn't say that," writes Swaim, now the publisher of Long Beach alt-weekly The District. MORE: In a letter to The Nation published on the OC Weekly blog, Gustavo Arellano says that "many of the overarching conclusions" reached by Wiener in the piece "are ludicrous."

Continue ReadingSwaim: Minor Clarification on The Nation’s LA Weekly Piece

David Jones (pictured) tells AAN News that after "doing this particular job in this particular (very special) place" for such a long time, he plans to return to writing and possibly teaching. While he won't miss "squidging things around a (computer) screen," that doesn't mean it isn't difficult for him to leave the Reader. "We still do some amazing things here, every week, of course, and I'll feel strange not having my hands on any of it anymore," he says.

Continue ReadingChicago Reader’s PD: ‘It’s Time to Move On’ After 29 Years