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Read more about the article Boston’s Weekly Dig Announces Big, Big, Big Editorial Changes

Joe Keohane will be stepping down as editor next month and will be replaced by current music/food/commerce editor Michael Brodeur, the Dig announced today. "Running this zoo has been enormously fun," says Keohane, "but I've always said that turnover is key to keeping an alt-weekly fresh, and Brodeur's the guy for the job." The Dig also announced that staff writer Paul McMorrow will be promoted to news and features editor; Jim Stanton has been hired "to rehabilitate the paper's disastrously bad website;" and Salon.com writer Cintra Wilson will soon begin contributing a semimonthly celebrity column.

Continue ReadingBoston’s Weekly Dig Announces Big, Big, Big Editorial Changes

Mike Lacey, VVM and a host of other alternative papers have been sucked into the Byzantine persecution complex of perennial libertarian presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. A column blasting a number of alt-weeklies for their anti-Larouchian tendencies appeared last week in something called the Executive Intelligence Report and has been circulating in the blogosphere. Lissa Harris, a blogger for Boston's Weekly Dig, among those papers named, gamely attempts to respond with a straight face.

Continue ReadingLaRouche Defenders Lash Out at Alternative Press

A humble sales guy for Boston's Weekly Dig by day, by night Alan Levesque plays bass and sings for The Radio Knives, a "primal garage rock" band. "It's the kind of thing that makes cave men jump up and down," Levesque tells The Boston Herald, which gives the trio props.

Continue ReadingWeekly Dig Sales Rep Howls at Night

Jeff Lawrence (pictured) could care less that some law enforcement officials think escort ads are a front for prostitution. According to a recent piece in E&P, the president of Boston's Weekly Dig decided to remove the ads from his paper because he thought they were attracting too many 50-year-old white male suburbanites. "It's no different than if we started running ads for Geritol or Depends adult diapers," Lawrence tells E&P. "In terms of attracting readers, content is one thing, but the advertisements, too, are huge part of determining whether your readers are going to respond to your paper." Lawrence says the Dig also is considering whether to drop a couple of other categories that may not belong in the paper. "Advertisers like that you're protecting your demographic," he says, "They say, 'You're willing to give up revenue to stay on mission -- that's fantastic.'"

Continue ReadingDecision to Dump Escort Ads About Demographics, Not Morals, Says Dig