Innocent college students in Northern California are among the victims of a recent Monterey County Weekly Student Guide that recklessly exposed them to advertisements for sexy undergarments and a local custom called "happy hour."
"I come to the newspaper business honestly and organically: I was inspired as I read the Washington Post every morning as a 5th grader in 1973," Erik Cushman tells the California Newspaper Publishers Association. "I have a predisposition for foul language and strong whiskey -- and I don't object to hard work." He goes on to discuss how he ended up at the Weekly, the paper's redesigned website and its solar-power initiative.
The Weekly says its five-week Community Fund campaign has raised a total of $529,337 for local nonprofits. A total of 1,609 readers donated to the campaign, in amounts ranging from 27 cents to over $50,000.
The Weekly has completely redesigned its website and launched a corresponding mobile application. Among the cool new features on the site are a local business guide, a local song of the day on the site jukebox and feeds from local blogs and local, state and national news sources. "[The site] will be a boon to our community, expanding our content and how our readers can obtain and interface with it," Weekly CEO Bradley Zeve says. "It offers more in every way -- more accessibility and more content." The site and the mobile app were both designed in-house by longtime Weekly staffer Kevin Smith, who says he's happy to roll out the project to the public. "Plus," he adds, "maybe now I can have time to read my kids a good-night story."
The Weekly celebrates an historic milestone with a special 20th anniversary issue that hit the streets (and the web) yesterday. The 200-page issue, which is saddle stitched and features the Weekly's first-ever glossy cover, "takes a long backwards glance at the people, the institutions, the buildings, the parties and the natural disasters that have helped shape the community" since Coast Weekly (the paper's original name) debuted in the fall of 1988. "The community support has been fantastic for this issue, in much the same way it has been for the last twenty years," says founder and CEO Bradley Zeve.
Nearly two decades ago, Bradley Zeve bought a failing Monterey County tourist paper called Coasting and gradually transformed it into what is now Monterey County Weekly, reports Ruth Hammond. Celebrating its 16th anniversary this year, the paper owes its longevity to Zeve's approach: Plan carefully, know your audience, and be prepared to weather disasters. The result is a paper that claims the second-highest household penetration -- around 30 percent -- among papers in the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. "By having a huge household penetration, we have a lot of influence," says Zeve.
The founders of the Missoula Independent are back together again. Eric Johnson has been hired as editor of Coast Weekly in Monterey, Calif., and his cohort Erik Cushman was promoted from vice president and director of operations to publisher. Founder Bradley Zeve will concentrate on community relations and grassroots social projects.
