The California Newspaper Publishers Association recently gave out 480 first and second place awards in its 2009 Better Newspapers contest, and nine alt-weeklies received at least one. The Sacramento News & Review won ten awards, including firsts for Public Service, Columns, Sports Story, Front Page, Freedom of Information. SF Weekly won seven awards, including first-place finishes for Writing, Investigative/Enterprise Reporting and Environmental/Ag Resource Reporting. The North Coast Journal won six awards, including firsts in the Writing, Local News Coverage, Business/Financial Story and Environmental/Ag Resource Reporting categories. Palo Alto Weekly took home five awards -- all first-place wins -- in the Editorial Comment, Local News Coverage, Sports Coverage, Feature Photo, Best Website and General Excellence categories. Chico News & Review won two awards, both firsts, for Editorial Pages and Special Issue. Pacific Sun also took home two awards, both firsts, for Feature Story and Lifestyle Coverage. Metro Silicon Valley, Pasadena Weekly and the San Francisco Bay Guardian each took home one award.
"At a time when many cities struggle to support one newspaper, Palo Alto has three," the New York Times reports. In addition to the Weekly (which also publishes a daily electronic edition each weekday), there are two dailies, The Daily Post and The Daily News.
The Weekly will join The Mountain View Voice and The Almanac in a new three-story building built and owned by parent company Embarcadero Media later this month. "The new building boasts energy-efficient and other environmental features that will make it among the 'greenest' buildings in the area," the Voice reports. READ MORE about the building in a 2008 story in the Weekly.
The California Newspaper Publishers Association announced the winners of its annual Better Newspapers Contest on Saturday, and nine AAN members won a total of 38 awards. The Sacramento News & Review won a total of nine awards, five of which were first-place finishes, including a General Excellence win. "The News & Review is a salty and irreverent weekly packed with excellent coverage of news and culture, multiple voices in columns and two pages of letters," the judges wrote. "Its colorful design is inviting and, praises to the sales department, it is packed with ads." In addition, Palo Alto Weekly also won nine total awards; the North Coast Journal won eight; Chico News & Review won four; the San Francisco Bay Guardian won three; Metro Silicon Valley won two; and the Pacific Sun, Pasadena Weekly and SF Weekly each took home one award. CORRECTION: The Santa Barbara Independent also won five awards.
Late next month the Weekly will begin publishing a single weekly print edition every Friday and a new electronic edition, "Express," Monday through Friday, publisher Bill Johnson announced last week. (The Weekly is unique among AAN members in that it currently produces two print products each week, one on Wednesday and one on Friday.) "Our vision is to increasingly rely on our website and our daily electronic edition to provide local news and sports coverage, and to use our newspaper to present in-depth and feature coverage, plus summaries of the week's news," he says. The move reflects changing reading preferences and the increased prominence of the internet, while offering the added benefit of reducing the paper's carbon footprint, Johnson says.
Thomas, who passed away on July 12, was the first president of Pleasanton Weekly, owned by Palo Alto Weekly parent company Embarcadero Publishing. He was an original organizer of AAN West, and also worked for the East Bay Express. "For those who knew Bob, his accomplishments come as no surprise," says Embarcadero CFO Mike Naar. "Even so, they pale in comparison to the grace, good-naturedness and intelligent practicality he brought to work every day. His sense of humor, his incredible optimism, and his evenness defined the remarkable prince of a human being Bob was. We will all deeply miss him." Funeral services will be held Saturday, Aug. 9 at the Presbyterian Church in Burlingame, Calif. MORE: Read Thomas' obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Bob Thomas, one of the original organizers of the annual AAN West conference held each year in San Francisco, died on Saturday after a long bout with a neurological disease which he battled valiantly for a number of years, according to his colleagues at the Palo Alto Weekly. Thomas served as the general manager of East Bay Express before joining PAW-parent Embarcadero Publishing, where he launched Pleasanton Weekly in 2000 and facilitated the start-up of another community weekly several years later. Bob is survived by his wife Candy and their two children, according to an email circulated by ex-Embarcadero VP Franklin Elieh, who called his best friend "a gentle giant (who) treated everyone with respect." Funeral services will be held Saturday, Aug. 9 at the Presbyterian Church in Burlingame, Calif.
In the 31st annual awards competition, sponsored by the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club, the Palo Alto Weekly, SF Weekly, and San Francisco Bay Guardian all took home awards in the Newspapers: Non-Dailies division. Palo Alto Weekly -- and its online home, PaloAltoOnline.com -- won a total of nine awards, including first-place finishes in Analysis, Entertainment Review, and Page Design. The paper also finished in a second-place tie with SF Weekly for General Excellence. Speaking of the Weekly, it took home a total of four awards, including firsts in Sports Story and Technology Story, where it shared first place with the Bay Guardian. The Guardian also took home four awards total, with that shared first in Technology Story, plus firsts in Columns-News/Political and News Story.
