Editor & Publisher has recognized the Santa Barbara Independent as one of 10 newspapers of note, in their annual "10 That Do It Right" feature. The Independent is the only AAN member on this year's list (the Bay Guardian made the cut last year), which showcases newspapers in the US that are "performing in one particular aspect -- from marketing to online video -- that merits consideration and maybe even emulation by their peers." E&P notes that the Independent has become the top source for local news in town by capitalizing on turmoil at the daily Santa Barbara News-Press and by focusing on its website. "When you talk about the paper of record, you really are assuming that's the paper that has the institutional memory," Indy editor-in-chief Marianne Partridge says. "The fact is, it's our paper that has all the institutional memory."
A little before noon yesterday, a 5.4 magnitude earthquake hit Southern California, with an epicenter 29 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, according to the US Geological Survey. The quake, which was the largest in SoCal in more than a decade but apparently caused no major damage, was felt in AAN-member offices from San Diego to Santa Barbara, judging by a quick perusal of blogs. "[It] felt like I was standing on a rocking waterbed for at least 12 seconds. The building swayed back and forth. A large corkboard fell off my office wall," the OC Weekly's R. Scott Moxley reports. "An energy drink can stupidly placed (by me) on top of a file cabinet flew three feet in the air. The staff quickly evacuated the building and found phone lines dead." Up in Culver City at LA Weekly's offices, Mark Mauer notes: "The new LA Weekly building shakes like a leaf (at least around my desk) every time a car enters or leaves our garage, so it took a few extra seconds to figure out this was an actual earthquake and not just an SUV trying to find a parking space." The Santa Barbara Independent's Matt Kettman reports feeling a "long, rolling sensation," while San Diego CityBeat's Kinsee Morgan wins the award for brevity, simply noting the quake was the "biggest one I've felt yet."
The Santa Barbara Independent's Robby Robbins, who is AAN's Classified Advertising Chair, was married on July 2 to longtime partner Bryan O'Quinn as part of the Express' Wedding Wednesdays promotion. The paper chose six couples to be married to celebrate same-sex couples' newfound right to legally marry in California. In attendance at the July 2 ceremony were a number of Independent staffers who drove up from Santa Barbara, as well as Gloria Mock, advertising director of North Carolina's Independent Weekly, where Robbins previously worked. "Bryan and I are so grateful to the East Bay Express, [publisher] Jody Colley, and all their partners/vendors for making this wonderful time more spectacular than we could ever have imagined," Robbins tells AAN News via email. For more photos click here, and for a video montage of all six weddings, click here.
Independent.com has won the EPpy for the best weekly newspaper-affiliated website in the country, Editor & Publisher, which sponsors the contest with Mediaweek, reports. The winners of the annual awards honoring online work were announced yesterday in Las Vegas, and publisher Randy Campbell was there to accept, thanking his staff "for their hard work in taking the website from a skeleton to a fully operational daily source of news for the Santa Barbara community," the Independent reports. "There are no secrets to publishing, either online or in print, so I'm thrilled the hard work and commitment of our web team has been recognized on a national level," said Campbell back in April when the site was first nominated.
We're not sure how big they are, but after 15 years at the Santa Barbara Independent, Tom Morey has left two pairs of shoes to fill. According to a release from the paper, Jen Malkin and Robby Robbins will replace Morey by "dividing the awesome task of sales management." Robbins, who serves on the AAN Board as Classified Advertising Chair, "will concentrate on bringing sales in the door" while Malkin "lords over" production and marketing. And Morey isn't going anywhere: He will remain with the paper as part of the sales management team focusing on the local arts community.
The Independent and the parent company of the Santa Barbara News-Press have settled a federal copyright infringement lawsuit, the Indy reports. The suit was brought against the alt-weekly in 2006 after a reporter for the News-Press wrote an article describing what occurred in the paper's newsroom the day a handful of top editors resigned. The story never made the paper; instead, the Independent got a hold of a draft and posted it on its website, which the News-Press claimed violated federal copyright law. Local media law blogger Craig Smith says that even though they won't admit it, the settlement is "a victory for the Independent."
Doug Elder and Robby Robbins have been named the winners of the AAN CAN European Dream Trip contest, which ended on Friday. As the sales rep and sales manager who generated the most new business between Oct. 11, 2007 and March 21, they will each be awarded a 10-day trip for two that includes round-trip airfare and accommodations for three nights each in London, Paris and Rome. Elder and Robbins ended up with a final tally of $19,928, placing well ahead of the runner-up, John DeMartino of the Independent Weekly, who finished with $2,888.
As we reported last week, the California Supreme Court squelched the Santa Barbara Independent's last legal hope in a long fight over turning over some unpublished crime scene photographs. With the court declining to hear an appeal, the paper and staff photographer Paul Wellman faced criminal punishment -- including possible jail time -- if they continued to hold the photos. So the Independent, rather than give the photos to the district attorney, decided to publish all 334 of them on its website this week. "We did make a point of dragging this case out to the bitter end," explains news editor Nick Welsh. "This was in part inspired by the assault on the media that's been taking place for the past eight years, and the utter contempt for the public's right to know -- anything -- displayed by the Bush Administration."
