"Before the Express can work as an advertising vehicle, it must first achieve marginal editorial success," Slate's Jack Shafer says about Washington Post Co.'s "latest strategy to reclaim young AWOL readers." New Times CEO Jim Larkin tells Shafer the Post and other dailies are trying to stem the erosion of their near monopoly that began in the early 60's; San Diego Reader's Howie Rosen suggests the papers have priced themselves out of local markets with their steep advertising rates. Village Voice Media CEO David Schneiderman says the dailies "patronize" young readers, and "then wonder why they don't read their newspapers."

Continue ReadingShafer Says Free Commuter Dailies About Business, Not Journalism

In another daily paper attempt to capture young readers, The Washington Post's Express will be given away to commuters and is designed to be read in 15 minutes. "So The Post is going after the hipster demographic -- what a surprise," Washington City Paper Editor Erik Wemple tells the Post. Express will debut in August.

Continue ReadingWashington Post Co. Launching Free Weekday Tabloid

Bob Kittle, editorial page editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune, claims he had never seen the 10-month-old AAN paper when he learned CityBeat Editor David Rolland would be appearing on a local NPR "Editor's Roundtable" alongside him. Directed to CityBeat’s Web site, Kittle was shocked to find profanity -- so shocked, in fact, that he tried unsuccessfully to get Rolland kicked off the radio program, on which Kittle is a regular pundit. "CityBeat is not journalism. It’s trash," Kittle wrote in a letter to radio station KPBS. In this week’s CityBeat, Rolland responds that Kittle’s real intent was to "limit the range of debate" in San Diego, which he says, "has been too narrow ... for too long."

Continue ReadingDaily Editor Attempts to Silence San Diego CityBeat

The owners of the Long Island Press, one of the seven applying papers voted into the association at the Pittsburgh convention, "have begun plotting how to take the paper daily to compete with Newsday," reports the New York Post. Jed Morey, CEO of the paper's parent company, the Morey Organization, which also owns three radio stations on Long Island, tells the Post: "We consider the weekly a trial balloon. The size of this market lends itself to two dailies."

Continue ReadingNew AAN Member Already Thinking Daily

The Board of Directors of Creative Loafing, Inc., announced that it will investigate two of its directors from Cox Newspapers, Inc., owner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The question is whether the two directors used the confidential board meetings to learn enough about publishing alternative newsweeklies to launch "accessAtlanta" as a direct competitor to Creative Loafing (Atlanta).

Continue ReadingCreative Loafing to Investigate Cox Board Members

A few weeks ago the Baltimore Sun launched "LiVE!" its version of the ubiquitous daily paper sop to "young readers." Baltimore City Paper wasted no time in starting its own new weekly "Advice Column for Journalists Looking to Get in on the Lucrative Alt-Weekly Market." Here's a sample: "After more than two years with virtually no homegrown pop-music coverage ... three LiVE! covers in a row devoted to the hot musical acts of today. Ga-zinga! You surely are giving us a run for our money, pop-music-wise, which, of course, as everyone knows, is a big reason people pick up a publication like ours. And that's the idea, right? A publication like ours? Except folks gotta pay for yours."

Continue ReadingBaltimore City Paper Razzes the Sun

Jay Smith and Buddy Solomon, Cox Newspaper executives who sit on the Creative Loafing board as a result of Cox's 25 percent ownership in the alt-weekly chain, were apparently taking notes during the board meetings. The proof? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cox's flagship daily, last week rolled out accessAtlanta, a free-circulation weekly aimed directly at CL's young readers. John Sugg dubs the new paper Creative Loafing's Mini-Me and says CL has taken steps to freeze out Cox's Trojan Horse board members. "This action has exposed [Smith and Solomon] to charges of conflict of interest and the appearance of bad faith and ethics," says CL President and CEO Ben Eason. "We intend to wage this war with everything we have."

Continue ReadingCreative Loafing Accuses Board Members of Bad Faith

As the alternative newsweekly industry matures, competition from dailies and other media for the desirable 18-to-34 reader intensifies, E&P's Lucia Moses reports in this week's cover story. Despite the burgeoning youth-oriented offerings from daily media empires, "it may not be all that dire for alt-weeklies," she concludes. "They are a long way from being confused with dailies. They still write with more opinion and attitude, and take more risks."

Continue ReadingAlternative Newsweeklies Sharpen Their Edges

"Does the U.S. Department of Justice really have so little to do it must investigate why a couple of alternatives were folded?" E&P asks in a Nov. 25 editorial. With so many media outlets in both the Los Angeles and Cleveland markets where the two alternative weekly chains closed papers to end head-to-head competition, advertisers have plenty of places to go. "It's not an argument Justice can make with a straight face," E&P concludes.

Continue ReadingAnti-Trust Investigation of VVM/New Times “Risibly Misplaced”

Charles Whitaker, director of the Academy for Alternative Journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, says the Chicago dailies' two new youth-oriented weekday tabs "are neither hip, nor smart, nor in any way sophisticated." Whitaker, a former editor of Ebony, says he'd hoped the Tribune and the Sun Times would have used their considerable resources to achieve "a radical rethinking of what newspapers are and what they can be. ... Boy, was I wrong."

Continue ReadingWhitaker Disappointed in RedEye, Red Streak