Columbia Journalism Review assistant editor Jane Kim claims in a blog post that "one thing that was sorely lacking from the past two weeks of convention spotlighting was good alt weekly coverage." She then uses a couple of blog features from convention host-city papers Westword and City Pages to prove the "sad results" of "consolidation of the alt weeklies under VVM." In the comments section, Westword editor Patricia Calhoun argues that staff cartoonist Kenny Be, whose "Delegating Denver" series provided grist for Kim's critique, is "the town's best political columnist," adding that "to quote lines without the context of the artwork is hardly fair" when criticizing a cartoon. AAN executive director Richard Karpel, meanwhile, points out that both papers broke significant convention-related news prior to the conventions, and that several dozen other alt-weeklies had folks on the ground during the confabs. "It seems clear from the tone of this piece that Kim went in with a set of preconceived ideas -- the all-too-easy meme that corporate ownership leads to homogenization -- and wasn't going to let the facts get in her way at 4:42 p.m. on a Friday," City Pages' editor-in-chief Kevin Hoffman adds. Lastly, Village Voice Media executive associate editor Andy Van De Voorde takes Kim to task for "focusing on 'the various shades of Banana Republic grey' worn by the Palins" in her own work during the conventions, while City Pages reporters were arrested, roughed up, and pepper-sprayed as "a direct result of their decision to actually go out and cover news."
Updating their reporting every few minutes by telephone last night, City Pages' Jeff Shaw and Andy Mannix say they were "assaulted by the cops" while trying to cover a RNC protest march. Here's the play-by-play, from Shaw: "The police said we needed to leave, we showed them our press credentials. I said I was a reporter and that it was a public street. An officer struck me and knocked me backwards over a curb. I tried to get up, and three or four officers shoved me to the ground. Andy was maced." Meanwhile, The Stranger's Brendan Kiley was pepper-sprayed earlier this week at the RNC. "I've hurt myself in a lot of different ways," he reports, "but nothing hurts like pepper spray. The pain is fleeting, but it is crippling." Lastly, Sam Stoker, who attended the AAN/Medill Academy for Alternative Journalism this summer, was arrested twice this week while covering RNC protests for In These Times. He's been tapped by LEO Weekly to write a first-person account, which he's agreed to make free to AAN members to reprint. For more on Stoker's piece, contact LEO's Stephen George at sgeorge (at) leoweekly.com.
DCist reports that City Paper's parent company Creative Loafing needs to cut the paper's budget by $170,000. The belt-tightening could lead to additional layoffs at the alt-weekly (some production and editorial staffers were laid off after CL purchased City Paper and the Chicago Reader last year). "Like a lot of media companies, we are going through an exceptionally rough period, and indeed we are discussing how to cut expenses," editor Erik Wemple tells DCist. "I don't want to cite any figures at this point because we are trying our best as a company to minimize the impact. But yes, layoffs are part of the discussion."
"Books coverage at American daily newspapers is asphyxiating. That's the bad news," writes Washington City Paper's Mark Athitakis. "Here's more bad news: The situation is just as dire at alternative weeklies." He goes on to cite the cost-cutting that occurred when Creative Loafing purchased City Paper last year as an example. But he says there are reasons to be optimistic about alt-weeklies. "We've taken one hell of a beating, but our basic mandate -- to give people informed and lively coverage of subjects that often fall outside the larger media's radar -- remains intact," Athitakis writes. "And books are still part of that mandate." He wraps up his post by listing some tips for any critics hoping to contribute to alt-weeklies.
A driver who delivers copies of the alt-weekly to street boxes around D.C. was held up today, City Paper is reporting. The blog post, written about a half hour ago, has few details, other than that the "driver lost his vehicle, cell phone, and wallet in the incident." Editor Erik Wemple says City Paper "will be aggressively updating this story."
Electile Dysfunction, a documentary about political campaigns that City Paper's Mary Patel made with Joe Barber, has been bought by an independent film studio, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Cinema Libre plans to distribute the doc, which uses the 2006 U.S. Senate campaign in Pennsylvania as "a case study to explore how campaigns work," through Netflix, Blockbuster and Amazon. Patel tells the Inky that Electile Dysfunction will be out next month.
In a story based on the premise of New York Yankees starting pitcher Mike Mussina's failed attempts to get published by McSweeney's, the Onion "reports" that Mussina "frequently submitted" stories to Baltimore City Paper while he was in the minor leagues.
- Go to the previous page
- 1
- …
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- …
- 48
- Go to the next page
