To mark the occasion, the paper has put together a package reflecting not only its 35th anniversary, but its purchase last winter by Newspapers of New England Inc. During "seven-plus years of corporate ownership" under the Hartford Courant and the Tribune Company, the Advocate "found itself in the hands of a corporation that prized uniformity over individuality, that worried more about its shareholders than its readers, that bought into a world view that has become endemic in mainstream publishing," editor Tom Vannah writes. "More than a simple marking of time, then, this 35th anniversary is part of the Valley Advocate's rediscovery of the virtues of being an independent alternative to the corporate brand of media we were born to challenge."
"A City Hall proposal to group news boxes together in new kiosks ran into a barrage of criticism from media representatives and elected officials Monday night at the Board of Aldermen's Legislation Committee, which tabled the proposal," the New Haven Independent reports. New Haven Advocate publisher Josh Mamis spoke at the meeting, telling the committee that the proposal's prioritization of daily papers over weeklies is a restriction of freedom of speech, according to the Independent. He also complained about the way the city handled the issue, claiming that he wasn't even aware of news rack problems in New Haven. "I've never fielded a complaint," he told the committee. "If there are problems I'd love to hear about them." The ordinance will reportedly be revisited after more input from local media is obtained.
The city's Board of Aldermen is currently considering an ordinance that would require news organizations to obtain permits to place news boxes in public areas, the New Haven Advocate reports. Publishers would pay $25 for a three-year permit, and $12 per box. "In this climate, every dollar counts," Advocate publisher Josh Mamis says. He says that the new fees could lead to publishers having to pull distribution in areas with the least pick-up. "It's an issue of getting information to all the people of the city," says Mamis. Under the proposed legislation, the power to remove boxes deemed "obstructions" to the right of way would fall to the Public Works Department, which also worries Mamis. "You have to be concerned with the implications of that, should you be aggressively covering the Department of Public Works or the administration," he says.
The Phoenix was named "Newspaper of the Year" in the alternative weekly division by the New England Press Association in its 2007 Better Newspaper Contest. "After 40 years, the Boston Phoenix remains a model for alts, bristling with attitude and loaded with coverage of entertainment, culture, politics, and tweaking of the daily press," the judges say. The Boston alt-weekly led the pack of AAN papers represented in the awards with 12 first-place finishes. Boston's Weekly Dig was close behind it's crosstown competitor, grabbing seven first-place awards. The Portland Phoenix and Worcester Magazine each finished first in three categories, while the Hartford Advocate and the Providence Phoenix each took home one first-place award.
The Hartford Courant announced plans Tuesday to sell the Valley Advocate, an alt-weekly covering western Massachusetts, to Newspapers of New England Inc., which owns newspapers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Editor & Publisher reports that the sale lets the Courant focus its attention on its properties in Connecticut. The Advocate will continue to share content and do cross-market sales with the remaining alt-weeklies the Courant purchased in 1999 from New Mass. Media: the Hartford Advocate, the New Haven Advocate and Fairfield County Weekly. The sale is expected to close later this month; terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"We'll be excited if people just read it," Mark Oppenheimer says about the debut issue of The New Haven Review of Books. The publication's 300 copies are available only at a local bookstore, given away free with a purchase, but all of the contents are also available free online, Business New Haven reports. Oppenheimer leans on Connecticut alt-weekly colleagues in the inaugural issue: it features work by former Advocate scribe Paul Bass and Fairfield County Weekly editor Tom Gogola. "We have no funding, which is by design," Oppenheimer says, noting that he's currently looking for a sponsor to cover the printing costs of a next issue. "I wanted to do something that was very independent, very do-it-yourself."
"Perhaps figuring that pop-up ads have desensitized the public to intrusions on their reading space, more and more newspapers across the nation are opting to move advertising to the front page, above the fold, in the form of annoying post-it notes," Evan Brown writes in the Advocate. The Advocate's parent-paper the Hartford Courant is already running the ads, and, according to Advocate publisher Joshua Mamis, the alt-weekly is looking at ways to "creatively" use them.
When the Advocate staff learned that the New Haven Police Department was holding a bumper sticker contest to advertise its gun hotline, they kicked around dozens of ideas, riffing on common bumper stickers. Ultimately, the paper decided to submit two: "My child is an Honor Student ... who hasn't learned how to fire a gun," and "I'd rather NOT be shooting a gun." The latter beat out 24 other slogans in votes cast by around 200 cops, the Hartford Courant reports. Advocate staff writer Chris Arnott wrote the text and production manager Matthew Ford did the design, according to the New Haven Independent. "This is a genuine thing," Arnott said at a press conference unveiling the stickers. "Not a snarky Advocate thing."
In an effort to reach out to the region's growing Hispanic population, the Western Massachusetts alt-weekly has entered a content-sharing partnership with La Prensa del oeste de Massachusetts (The Press of Western Mass.), a monthly English-Spanish newspaper. La Prensa's editor and publisher Natalia Munoz will contributing an occasional column to the alt-weekly, and some Valley Advocate stories will run in La Prensa. In addition, the Advocate is rolling out an ad campaign targeting La Prensa's Hispanic readers.