Under a settlement with the city, Bay Area newspapers have agreed to let the city erect pedmounts in high-traffic areas. Problem is, a subsidiary of media conglomerate Clear Channel Communications will control those pedmounts, who gets to use them and what's advertised on the back. "The idea of giving Clear Channel exclusive control over newspaper distribution -- and ad space on the back of the news racks -- in the city is extremely troubling," the San Francisco Bay Guardian writes.
A battle of words still rages in Portland, Maine, two weeks after Dodge Morgan fired most of the editorial staff at Casco Bay Weekly. Editor Chris Busby says Morgan was a “philanthropist” who suddenly panicked about the paper’s losing money. Morgan and his ex-wife, Lael Morgan, say Busby and his all-male staff were insubordinate and hostile. Not only that, Lael Morgan says someone peed into a trash bag full of files found after the firings. Not us, insists a furious Busby.
In an article penned by Executive Editor Tim Redmond, the 35-year-old weekly announces that it has "launched the first stage of a legal offensive to stop" its New Times-owned competitor "from engaging in anticompetitive business practices that may violate federal and state (antitrust) laws." Redmond also details a settled lawsuit in which the Bay Guardian charged a sales rep who had decided to jump ship with secretly downloading over 1,000 pages of sales records and providing them to her then-new employer, SF Weekly.
Dodge Morgan, owner of the Casco Bay Weekly, has fired the alt-weekly's editor, deputy editor and both staff writers, the Portland Press Herald reports. Morgan tells the Press Herald the paper has been losing money for more than a year. He says the paper will keep printing despite the layoffs. When asked how, Morgan responds, "That's Lael's problem." Lael Morgan, his ex-wife, is the weekly's publisher.
After 24 years with East Bay Express, Editor John Raeside is hanging it up. Raeside has announced his resignation, effective March 1. Managing Editor Stephen Buel will take his place. Raeside says the paper has had some remarkable accomplishments in its first year under New Times ownership and that he feels he's leaving it in good hands.
"Please don't eat at McDonalds," begs Chris Barry, who went undercover to work at one of the chain's locations in Portland, Maine. Warning: Don't read this Casco Bay Weekly story after a meal, especially if you dined on fast food.
Bruce B. Brugmann, publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, is one of four International Press Institute delegates who went to South Korea to investigate the arrest of three newspaper owners/publishers. The IPI "press freedom mission" met with members of the South Korean government and legislature, and held a news conference in Seoul on Sept. 6.
