In one of the most memorable events ever at an AAN convention, Dan Savage electrified the seventh annual Alternative Newsweekly Awards affair with a high-voltage performance that included nearly naked waiters and publishers shedding trousers. One attendee called it "the best hour of comedy I've ever seen." Savage's fatwah: every first-place winner had to drink a shot and shed an article of clothing. Two-thirds of the way in, he admitted, "I can't believe you are all playing along. The power of one pushy fag in AAN -- it's amazing."
Gambit Weekly took four first-place awards today in the seventh annual Alternative Newsweekly Awards, the most of any paper in AAN for the first-place awards.
AAN announces the results of the seventh annual Alternative Newsweekly Awards. Five AAN papers picked up five nominations each: Gambit Weekly, Independent Weekly, Creative Loafing Atlanta, LA Weekly and Willamette Week. Some of AAN's best writers and artists picked up nominations for the second, third, fourth, fifth and even sixth year. And a tough bunch of judges awarded only a first-place in several categories. So congratulations to first-place winners Clancy DuBos and Katy Reckdahl of Gambit Weekly and cartoonists Garrett Gaston and Ken Fisher (Ruben Bolling).
Robert Christgau, senior editor for The Village Voice, will use his National Arts Journalism Program senior fellowship to write a world history of popular music. The fellowships at Columbia's School of Journalism are funded by the Pew Charitable Trust. Two freelance arts writers, Douglas Wolk and Sarah Frere-Jones, are named research fellows under the program. Both have written for AAN papers.
Bob Norman of New Times Broward/Palm Beach was the big winner in this year's Green Eyeshade competition, picking up three awards, including two first-places. Norman wasn't alone; AAN members captured 15 of the 24 awards handed out in the weekly/monthly category of SPJ's Southeast region contest: Miami New Times picked up six, New Times Broward/Palm Beach won five, Creative Loafing Atlanta took home three, and the Nashville Scene received one.
Two New Times investigative series were selected as winners in the 2002 John Bartlow Martin Awards, sponsored by Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. First place went to "Fallout," a look at the U.S. Navy's radioactive legacy in the Bay Area by SF Weekly's Lisa Davis. Phoenix New Times staff writer Amy Silverman captured third place for her special series "Slammed," which exposed abuses in Arizona's juvenile justice system. Sandwiched between them was Katherine Boo, former managing editor of Washington City Paper, for her story in The New Yorker on welfare mothers.
Lisa Davis' "Fallout" series, which won a George Polk Award a few weeks ago, wins a 2002 IRE Award for investigative journalism. Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. honors Davis and John Mecklin of the SF Weekly for “Fallout,” which reveals "how a Bayfront property about to be turned over to the city by the Navy may be far more contaminated with radioactive waste than current cleanup plans acknowledge." Other AAN members Phoenix New Times and New Times Los Angeles were the two finalists in the local circulation weekly division, giving New Times a lock on the division.
