Down from 18 last year

Fourteen papers have applied for membership to AAN, including several that went through the Admissions Committee gauntlet last year: the Beverly Hills Weekly, Boston’s Weekly Dig, Maui Times, The Source and Our City.

Yet another alternative newsweekly from Duluth, Minn., the Reader Weekly, is applying this year, after Ripsaw of the great Minnesota North Country was admitted last year. Another upper Midwest paper is applying: High Plains Reader of Fargo, N.D., and two more Canadian newsweeklies, Pique Newsmagazine of Whistler, B.C., and Prairie Dog Magazine of Regina, S.K., have applied.

For the next two months, members of the Admissions Committee will score the contenders and record the results on a worksheet developed by committee chairperson Clif Garboden, senior managing editor of the Phoenix Newspaper Group. The worksheet standardizes the evaluation process by providing a list of criteria by which to measure the applicants. The 11-person committee will complete its work on Wednesday, May 29, during a meeting at the 25th annual AAN convention in Madison, Wis. Its recommendations will be published two days later in the second issue of this year’s AAN News Convention Daily.

After reviewing the papers and the Admission Committee recommendations, AAN members vote on applying papers Saturday, June 1, the final day of the convention.

These papers have applied for admission:

Beverly Hills Weekly

Boston’s Weekly Dig

City Pulse (Lansing, Mich.)

Creative Loafing-Greenville, Spartanburg, S.C.

High Plains Reader (Fargo, N.D.)

Independent Florida Sun (Pensacola, Fla.)

Maui Time (Lahaina, Hawaii)

Omaha Weekly

Our City (Clarksville, Tenn.)

Pique Newsmagazine (Whistler, B.C.)

Prairie Dog Magazine (Regina, S.K.)

The Portland Mercury (Portland, Ore.)

Reader Weekly (Duluth, Minn.)

The Source (Bend, Ore.)