"Newspapers, especially corporate-owned dailies, have become more feminine, and that is quite obvious in the pages of the local Gannett daily," Shane Goodman wrote in his Cityview editor's note last week. "As reporters spend more time writing about the hot colors of throw pillows and less time investigating crime at city hall, it creates opportunities for papers like this one." His comments have drawn a rebuke from the Des Moines Register's Rekha Basu, who says that "the lack of logic, research or intellectual honesty" in Goodman's note "are appalling." She adds: "But even more so are the sexist stereotypes that pour off a few short paragraphs of the city's so-called alternative paper."
Last week, we reported that axed Des Moines Register cartoonist Brian Duffy was given the chance to publish his farewell cartoon in Cityview. Now the alt-weekly has announced that it will continue publishing cartoons by Duffy each week.
After the news broke that Des Moines Register editorial cartoonist Brian Duffy was laid off as part of Gannett's nationwide cuts last week, Cityview editor/publisher Shane Goodman got in touch with Duffy and offered him a full page to publish whatever he wanted. Duffy took the alt-weekly up on the offer, and this week Cityview published his "farewell" editorial cartoon. "The Register lost an Iowa icon by dropping Duffy from their staff, and they are quickly finding that out ... the hard way," Goodman says in a note to readers.
Swanger's last day at the editorial helm of the Des Moines, Iowa, alt-weekly was Friday. He says he will remain as Cityview's freelance entertainment editor. Publisher Shane Goodman tells AAN News that for now he'll pull double-duty and edit the paper.
Due to a 2004 change in the association's bylaws, five papers that have taken on new majority owners in the past two years will have their AAN membership reviewed in 2008. The Membership Committee will evaluate The Other Paper, Boston's Weekly Dig, East Bay Express, Metro Pulse, and Cityview, and will issue a report to members a week before the 2007 annual convention. To retain their membership, each paper must be affirmed by at least one-third of the members voting at the annual meeting in Philadelphia, which is tentatively scheduled for June 7.
Pulitzer Prize-winning newsman and Des Moines Cityview co-owner Michael Gartner is facing a revolt by the board of regents -- which he chairs -- over accusations that he is scaring away the university's most promising presidential candidates, reports the Associated Press. As the school struggles to find and keep a president, Gartner's critics say he is "tactless, abrasive and ill-suited to the collegial ways of academia," according to the report. His supporters admit he can be prickly, but chalk it up to his preference for results-oriented leadership. Gartner says his modus operandi changed after his 17-year-old son died unexpectedly of diabetes in 1994. "I've always been outspoken. But I became even more outspoken," he says. "Because, I figure, what's the worst thing could happen to me than what's already happened? Why pull your punches? Just do what you think is right.''
Jon Gaskell and Cityview have had a turbulent past: He first edited the paper from 2000 to 2002, then left and started his own alt-weekly, Pointblank, which was admitted to AAN membership in 2003. Cityview was sold to some of Pointblank's investors in April 2005, and the two newspapers merged into one alt-weekly that was still called Cityview, with Gaskell as editor. He tells The Des Moines Register that "there was no drama" in his resignation this time around; his departure was announced in a publisher's note in the current edition of Cityview.
