Media critic Michael Anft announces he is ending his 20-year on-and-off relationship with Baltimore City Paper and retiring "to flip through heretofore-unread copies of The New Yorker and Harper's." Anft takes a parting shot at "the mostly uninspired local product we unfortunate viewers/readers/listeners have spewed at us."
Earlier this year a Philadelphia City Paper writer received e-mails from one "Mr. Fantastic" offering information and pictures from within one of the Army's top-secret facilities, Editor Howard Altman writes. Now Maurice Threats, 21, an Army MP, has been indicted on charges of espionage and bribery. "This case came from calls that City Paper placed to us," Martin Carlson, assistant U.S. Attorney, Middle District of Pennsylvania, tells Altman. However, federal prosecutors won't confirm that Threats and "Mr. Fantastic" are the same person. [This is an updated version of last week's story.]
The first gay couple to have a commitment/civil union announcement published in the New York Times, Daniel Gross and Steven Goldstein, met through a personal ad in the Washington City Paper. According to the announcement, Gross's ad read: "Nice Jewish boy, 5 feet 8 inches, 22, funny, well-read, dilettantish, self-deprecating, Ivy League, the kind of boy Mom fantasized about." He got 35 responses and one lifetime commitment.
Howard Altman, executive editor of Philadelphia City Paper, describes for AJR how a Saint Jack's Bar ad featuring the Thai King in hip-hop regalia nearly severed relations between the United States and Thailand. "It certainly was not the first advertising complaint City Paper had ever received, considering that we once printed an ad for a bar depicting the Virgin Mary with udders," Altman writes. "But this complaint was different. It was from an unhappy representative of a foreign government."
“This book, I hope, is a book of encounters, none of them predictable,” novelist and music writer Jonathan Lethem writes in his introduction to “Da Capo Best Music Writing 2002.” Seven of the 28 articles in the collection were originally published in alternative newsweeklies, including The Village Voice, Chicago Reader and City Pages (Twin Cities).
Steve Perry, a former editor of City Pages (Twin Cities), will return to his old job, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Perry has been writing for The Rake, a new monthly started by Tom Bartel, brother of City Pages Publisher Mark Bartel. Perry replaces Tom Finkel, who was fired in July. Perry is the second former editor restored at a Village Voice Media paper this week, following Skip Berger's return to Seattle Weekly.
Pittsburgh City Paper has hired Brentin Mock, a graduate of the Academy for Alternative Journalism at Medill. Each summer 10 minority journalism students go through the eight-week residential program, learning long-form feature writing with the alt-edge. Mike Lenehan, executive editor of the Chicago Reader and one of the founders of the Academy, says right now he's happy if one or two of its graduates are snapped up by alts. In the meantime, the Academy, which is funded by grants from AAN and its publishers, is building "a small army of future writers," Lenehan says.
Media giant Gannett Co. is launching its first salvo in a war to win the elusive 25-to-34 year old reader away from alternative newsweeklies. In Lansing, Mich., and Boise, Idaho, Gannett dailies are set to begin publishing "alternative" weeklies this fall. Established alts in those markets are bracing for the ruthless competition described by Richard McCord in his book "Chain Gang." Berl Schwartz, publisher of City Pulse in Lansing, scoffs at the notion the Gannett weekly will be an edgy alternative publication. "What is it an alternative to?" he asks. "Itself?"
Kerry Farley, now general manager of Impact Weekly, says Yesse Communications "will probably only continue to exist as long as it owes money." Meanwhile, several key employees are back on the job at Impact, and Farley tells AAN News a sale of the paper is not imminent. In Springfield, Ill., Bud Farrar is busy taking back Illinois Times, a paper he owned for 20 years before selling it to Yesse in 1997.
Jim Rizzi has been named vice president of sales and marketing for Salt Lake City Weekly, Publisher John Saltas announced today. Rizzi has had a 20-year career with New Times Inc., most recently as publisher of New Times Los Angeles.
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