A total of 400 people descended on the Pennsylvania Convention Center and the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown two weeks ago for the 2008 AAN Convention. The three-day event featured the usual mix of presentations and panels, food and booze, and business talk and gossip between alt-weekly staffers and industry types from across North America. AAN committees and staff mostly took care of the first item, while host paper Philadelphia City Paper had the second one covered, and attendees proved themselves more than capable of handling the third on their own.

Continue ReadingWrapping Up the 31st Annual AAN Convention

The Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists awarded City Pages top honors in eight categories last week, including newsroom-wide wins for Best Website and Best Special Section. The paper also finished first in the Business Feature; Photojournalism: Pictoral; Short News Feature; Sports Feature; Sports Spot News; and Use of Multimedia categories.

Continue ReadingCity Pages Wins 16 Minnesota SPJ Awards

Saying that the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter tasked with turning in a "breezy" report about last weekend's AAN Convention "must have drawn the short straw," Bruce Schimmel writes that "it must have been challenging for [Suzette] Parmley to do something chipper about industry upstarts who are eating her lunch." But she rose to that challenge, filing what Schimmel calls a "flattering portrait" of alt-weeklies. He goes on to draw distinctions between the cultures of dailies and alt-weeklies, ultimately concluding that "the daily is dying." He adds: "And while that might mean a temporary measure of good fortune for weeklies, even the most eccentric of independents dread the daily's demise. A functional democracy needs the good reporting that comes with these dinosaurs."

Continue ReadingCity Paper Founder on the Inquirer’s Convention Report

Berl Schwartz thanks the AAN membership for admitting City Pulse on Saturday in a letter to the editor. "This was our fourth time to apply, and I am sure the membership committee was tired of looking at us, so allow me to thank you on behalf of its members as well," he writes. He also says he's printing a banner to hang in the paper's office that quotes from a membership committee report on City Pulse: "It's still not perfect."

Continue ReadingCity Pulse Publisher Says ‘Thank You’

The daily paper stopped by this weekend's AAN Convention, and found "a shared belief that alternative weeklies will do just fine in the age of cyberspace and newsroom downsizing." Baltimore City Paper managing editor Erin Sullivan says that as the economy tanks, the paper is reallocating resources, concentrating "on investigative reporting and increasing our criticism. ... Things that the dailies can't or won't do with the same level of depth." Philadelphia City Paper founder Bruce Schimmel tells the Inquirer that competition from blogs and other media has pushed alt-weeklies to be even more aggressive. "Everyone has access to your morgue," he says, "so you better get it right."

Continue ReadingPhilly Inquirer: Mood at Convention Was ‘Resoundingly Upbeat’

Jamieson, a former City Paper staff writer, has just won the Livingston Award for his May 2007 investigative account and narrative about serial arsonist, "Letters From an Arsonist." The Livingston Awards are limited to journalists under the age of 35, are the largest all-media, general-reporting prizes in the country, and come with a $10,000 prize. "The story is a testament to what journalism can do and should do more often. In this era of cutbacks and imperatives to blog!blog!blog! Jamieson proved that journalism is still best served by expert reporting and expert writing," writes City Paper's Jason Cherkis. "If you want a textbook case of why this publication should still matter to District residents and its owners down south, this is it." See the full list of Livingston winners here.

Continue ReadingWashington City Paper’s Dave Jamieson Wins Livingston Award

As many as 1,000 copies of last week's paper were removed from street boxes after an unflattering cover story involving local police officers was published, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. "I do believe they were stolen and, yes, I suspect someone close to the story is behind it," Weekly executive editor John Saltas says. The Tribune notes that this type of thing has happened before: "The alleged theft is reminiscent of an incident in 1997 when then-Salt Lake District Attorney Neal Gunnarson threw a stack of Weekly papers into a trash bin after the paper published an uncomplimentary story about him."

Continue ReadingHundreds of Salt Lake City Weekly Copies Disappear

The City Paper took home 10 2008 Golden Quill Awards, which were announced at a reception last night. The alt-weekly finished first in five categories -- Business reporting, Criticism, Cultural reporting, Enterprise/Investigative, and Sports -- and was also a finalist in five categories. The competition "recognizes professional excellence in written, photographic, broadcast and online journalism in Western Pennsylvania."

Continue ReadingPittsburgh City Paper Wins Western PA Press Club Awards