Popular Online Magazine Debuts New Webpage Highlighting the Best in the Alternative Press.

Popular online magazine Salon recently added a page plugging stories from the alternative press. Aptly dubbed Alt, the section debuted April 9; its first weekly installment included offerings from AAN papers like The Stranger, LA Weekly and Washington City Paper, as well as the satirical weekly, The Onion.

Salon Assistant Editor Jenn Shreve, who plucks and posts the articles, says Alt began as an internal memo which she would circulate on a weekly basis.

“We’ve long believed that alternative newspapers were a good source for unique story ideas and new writing talent,” she says. “So I would scour [alternative papers] each week and send out an e-mail detailing what stories were good, what writers looked promising and so on. Several editors thought this would be a useful service to our readers as well–highlighting the best of the weeklies–so we turned it into a weekly column.”

In order to provide links to readers and keep the section “timely,” Shreve only mines stories from publications that are online.

“I look for stories that are provocative, well-written and reported, and that I feel are of interest on a national level,” adds Shreve. ” [The stories I choose] must be interesting to someone in Maine, even if it’s written for a Seattle audience. National appeal is a major criteria.”