In a letter to readers in the special issue hitting the streets of Richmond, Va., today, publisher Lori Collier Waran and editor Jason Roop take stock of their successes and look back at the optimism with which Style launched in November 1982. "It's difficult to imagine such optimism today, considering the publishing landscape," they write. "But here we are, hundreds of stories, thousands of pages and millions of words later, celebrating a milestone. Thank you for reading us and supporting us with your advertising."
To show solidarity with Phoenix New Times, members of AAN are providing links on their websites that direct their readers to the many places on the internet where the home address of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is listed. Last week, New Times disclosed that its executives, writers, and even its readers were the target of a sweeping grand jury probe relating to the paper's publishing the sheriff's home address online; this disclosure led to the paper's co-founders being arrested. One day later, all charges against New Times were dropped. "Our association and its members won't tolerate this sort of attack on the right of a member paper to publish information that is and ought to be public record," says Tim Redmond, AAN First Amendment Chair Tim Redmond and executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
The alt-weekly revealed today that Maricopa County grand jury subpoenas are targeting its editors, reporters, and online readers. The inquiry stems from the paper's posting of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's home address on its site as part of a 2004 story on "America's Toughest Sheriff." By revealing the mere existence of this grand jury, New Times exposes itself to criminal penalties, but faced with what a judge deemed "highly inappropriate" behavior by prosecutors, the paper felt it had no choice but to go public. "We started this newspaper because we believed in the public's right to know," the paper's co-founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin explain. "Nothing has changed."
Two years ago, the AAN member biweekly attempted to obtain security tapes to confirm that multimillionaire James Leininger was secretly lobbying for school vouchers at the state capitol. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) immediately blocked the release of the tapes, saying it would compromise "homeland security." The Observer appealed to the state attorney general, who agreed that the DPS was obligated to release the videos. But the story doesn't end there. Instead of complying, DPS filed suit in state court, lost, and appealed the court's decision. Now documents obtained by the Observer and posted online show the department has spent more than $160,000 on the suit. "Beyond this being a frivolous lawsuit, what I find a little depressing is the DPS is proceeding like there is this bottomless bag of money from which to draw," Observer editor Jake Bernstein tells the Austin American-Statesman. "It just never occurred to us that they would carry this as far as they have."
More than 50 media organizations, including AAN, applaud the House's passage of the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 (H.R. 2102). The bill, passed yesterday by a veto-proof vote of 398-21, would ensure that reporters don't face federal prosecution for refusing to identify confidential sources except in special circumstances. The Senate version of the shield law was strongly passed earlier this month by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but has not been scheduled for a full Senate vote, according to the Washington Post. The Post also reports that President Bush threatened to veto the bill, saying the protections it would afford "could severely frustrate -- and in some cases completely eviscerate -- the federal government's ability to investigate acts of terrorism and other threats to national security."
Mike Smith will replace Chris Ferrell, who announced his departure to start a new media company last month. Smith, who has been with the company since 1997, will also be associate publisher of Nfocus magazine. "It was important to me and the Scene to search internally for Chris Ferrell's successor," says Stuart Folb, group publisher of Village Voice Media, which owns the Scene. "After interviewing Mike, there was no doubt that my search was over and that he was the right person for the job."
The gesture by the Richmond, Va., alt-weekly celebrates an idea recently offered by Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors Chairman Kelly E. Miller, who suggests that the county make English its official language. "Unfortunately, we were unable to make the issue 100 percent in English," Style Weekly editor Jason Roop says. "But if Mr. Miller can bear with us, we are evolving. We are trying our best." The paper hit a snag on its path to full English immersion in its always-difficult food section. "It was unavoidable to write about Nate's Taco Truck ... without using the word 'taco,'" Roop says.
- Go to the previous page
- 1
- …
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- …
- 99
- Go to the next page
