Last week, a 19-year-old follower of the Yusuf Bey family shot and killed Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was working on an investigation of the group and its headquarters, Your Black Muslim Bakery. Fortunately, former East Bay Express reporter Chris Thompson's run-in with the group didn't end so grimly. In 2002, the Express published Thompson's investigative series alleging acts of torture, rape, and sodomy perpetrated by the group. After the stories were published, the retaliation began. "Someone smashed up the windows of [the Express'] offices, and Thompson received numerous death threats," according to the Village Voice, where he's currently a staff writer. "Men repeatedly tried to follow Thompson home, or staked out routes he took leaving the office." Express editor Stephen Buel tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the intimidation campaign forced Thompson to work in a different county for months, and shook the paper to the point that "we stopped writing about the group."
In the East Bay Press Club's 2006 Excellence in Print Journalism Contest, the Express finished first in nine categories: sports feature, business feature, technology feature, general news, columnist, long feature, lifestyle feature, criticism or reviewing, and profile. According to a press release, the awards are "somewhat unique in that all print media organizations are judged against each other -- there are no separate categories for circulation or for magazines." Winners were announced Friday evening at a banquet in Oakland.
In its annual list of 10 newspapers that "do it right," E&P has singled out the San Francisco Bay Guardian as "the archetype of the politically involved, locally focused alternative newspaper that's an alert and occasionally rabid watchdog." Editor/publisher Bruce Brugmann tells E&P that he worries that he and his wife and Bay Guardian co-founder Jean Dibble "are almost anachronisms" in today's media environment, with their brand of crusading alt-journalism. "Every good newspaper man ought to be controversial," Brugmann says.
Writing for the defendant newspaper and its parent company, Village Voice Media, Will Harper reports that the Weekly said it sold ads below cost for "pro-competitive" reasons like generating new sales and "increas(ing) the customer base in a severely depressed market." VVM's motion, which was filed last week in response to the Bay Guardian's Oct. 2004 lawsuit, also asserted that the newspaper chain never engaged in a conspiracy to put its Bay Area competitor out of business. And in a unique counter-argument, the Weekly claimed that by filing suit, the Bay Guardian is trying to force it to reduce editorial expenses in order to adhere to a business model that relies heavily on freelancers and unpaid interns, instead of full-time reporters. THE BAY GUARDIAN'S REPORT: Judge advises attorneys to prepare for October trial even as summary-judgment motion is filed.
Since being purchased from Village Voice Media by a consortium of investors in May, the newly independent alt-weekly has been called on to name every person with ownership interests in the paper. Originally, the Express named only Pitch Weekly founder Hal Brody, Express editor Stephen Buel, Express co-founder Kelly Vance, and Monterey County Weekly CEO Bradley Zeve. Yesterday, the paper wrote on its blog, "Lest anyone assume that we are hiding anything related to the identity of our other colleagues, we are happy to formally introduce all our investors." The remaining investors: Gary Jenkins, founding partner of Kansas City-based Punch Software; Paul Ung, Oakland resident and spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia; Rick Watkins, president of the Kansas City real estate firm Watkins & Company; and Jay Youngdahl, a Cambridge-based managing partner of The Youngdahl Law Firm.
Last week, Stephen Buel, the editor and new co-owner of the East Bay Express e-mailed a letter to AAN to point out "several errors" in the Daily Planet's coverage of the paper's sale. The Daily Planet responded and countered with a number of questions for Buel and the other new Express owners about the ownership structure. Buel provided some answers, but they didn't satisfy the Planet.
The Bay Guardian ran an ad for Coors Light earlier this month and faced the wrath of local progressives, who have boycotted the company since 1974 due to its anti-union and anti-gay policies. "I wish they would not carry (the ad)," a representative of a local labor group tells the Bay Area Reporter. "I think they are mistaken to do so." Executive editor Tim Redmond tells the Reporter that the Bay Guardian will run any ad that's "not libelous, obscene, or consumer fraud" -- with the exception of cigarette advertising, which it no longer accepts**. "If every ad met my political correctness test, there would be no ads in the paper and I would be out of a job," Redmond says. **UPDATE: Redmond says the Bay Area Reporter got one detail wrong; the Guardian still takes cigarette ads. And he says we missed his most important quote: "I drink only Bud Light."
As the dust settles from Village Voice Media's sale of the Express to a consortium of independent owners, a clearer picture of the new paper is emerging. The Berkeley Daily Planet reports that former Pitch Weekly publisher Hal Brody is the paper's majority owner, with 51 percent of the stock. Brody tells the Bay Guardian that, in addition to himself, editor Stephen Buel and Monterey County Weekly's Bradley Zeve, there are three out-of-town investors in the paper. He also says that the Express' joint ad sales agreement with VVM's SF Weekly will continue "indefinitely," and that the paper will continue to be represented in national ad sales by Ruxton. Meanwhile, Buel tells the Daily Planet that VVM "doesn't do well in places with competition." He adds: "If you look at the paper in the past year or so, you will see that it has gotten a lot thinner ... they didn't do well here." Buel also says that while the Express remains a defendant in the Bay Guardian's predatory pricing lawsuit, VVM agreed to assume all responsibility for the litigation. Finally, Buel writes on the Express' blog that more changes are afoot: a 5,000 bump in circulation and a tightening of the distribution area. He says the new owners also plan to address "changes to the format and design of the newspaper [that] made it a far less hospitable home for small advertisers, and placed limits on our community news coverage."
- Go to the previous page
- 1
- …
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- …
- 31
- Go to the next page
