Bob Norman of New Times Broward-Palm Beach and Bruce Rushton of Phoenix New Times were named today as finalists in the 2005 Gerald Loeb Awards contest. Norman and Rushton received two of the four nominations in the small-newspapers category, which includes papers with circulation under 150,000. The Loeb Awards, which recognize superior business journalism, have been presented by UCLA's Anderson School of Management since 1973.
Bruce Dobie, co-founder and editor of Nashville Scene, will be leaving the paper next month. The 46-year-old father of two tells the Nashville Post that alt-weeklies "need to be young" and that he doesn't have as firm a grasp on how best to cover the city for a young audience as he once did. To adapt to the 24/7 news cycle favored by many 18-35-year-olds, he believes that the paper must establish an online presence and be willing to continually reinvent itself. Dobie's successor will be current associate editor Liz Garrigan, who's been at the Scene for eight years. "The Scene's a great paper now," she says. "With new energy and more aggressive reporting, it will be better."
It began innocently enough. Nashville Scene editor Bruce Dobie ran a generally positive review of Warren St. John's new book on football fans. St. John, in town for a book tour, read the review, but it was the caption under his photograph -- "Warren St. John uses race in the worst kind of way: to make himself look honorable" -- that caught his attention. The New York Times writer called Dobie to complain. He called again (and again and again). Finally, he wrote a piece for Slate in which he trashed Dobie, the paper and the reviewer. Dobie responds with an open letter to St. John: "You really are capable of offering only part of the truth, the part that burnishes your own image of yourself."
The San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote its first article about PG&E's monopoly on power in the Bay area in 1969, not long after the paper was founded. The San Francisco Chronicle looks back on this "lone, frequently bombastic crusade to make the city establish the municipal power utility Congress intended" and how the daily papers in San Francisco have opposed public power. The article quotes Stephen Buel, editor of the East Bay Express, as saying, "The sad fact is that a lot of the Bay Guardian's criticisms of PG&E are very apt, but the way in which the paper hammers home its message makes it get lost because it is so mind-numbingly repetitive."
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.
When the Nashville Scene ran a five-part series skewering the Tennessean, the local daily countered with a string of full-page, color ads belittling the circulation figures of its alt-weekly competitor. Tennessean Publisher Craig Moon tells AJR that the Scene's take-out had nothing to do with his decision to run the ads. The Scene published its own ads in response and Editor/ Publisher Bruce Dobie warns darkly: "Never pick on someone smaller than you."
