A Hollywood producer has asked about the rights to Philadelphia City Paper's serialized novel "Transit of Venus" by Anonymous D, says Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky. "Among the cast of characters so far is a self-cent ered, prima-donna female anchor, defiant photographers, an ineffectual news director, a lesbian PR person, naive production assistants, horndog salespeople, a bearded, lecherous general manager and a police commissioner with a brogue," Bykofsky writes. Could Hollywood resist a cast of characters like that??t
Keith Kelly reports in today's New York Post that Russ Smith discussed selling his paper to Taki Theodoracopulos, one of its well-heeled columnists, for $5 million. (In a letter to Jim Romanesko's Media News, Smith said Kelly's story is "wrong.")
St. Pete Weekly Newspapers will operate the Web portal Ironminds.com under a joint agreement with New York Metropolis, another non-AAN weekly alternative newspaper distributed in New York City's outer boroughs. St. Pete Weekly Newspapers publishes the new alternative newspaper St. Pete Weekly, which will handle Ironminds.com's day-to-day operations and move the Web site from a diarist-style online magazine to a portal and syndicate for alternative journalism.
"Being ahead was a lot less complicated than being alone," Andy Newman, editor of Pittsburgh City Paper, tells the Pittsburgh Business Times. The staff plans to meet this week to redesign and remake City Paper after its parent company bought rival newsweekly In Pittsburgh last month and closed it. City Paper has since then absorbed a number of former In Pittsburgh employees. Newman says he would rather "drive carpet staples" into his gums than conduct a focus group, but admits he's asked some other journalists for input on the new design.
Eric Celeste muses in the Dallas Observer on the departure of Lee Newquist from New Times and the future of Fort Worth Weekly in the post-John Forsyth era.
Pittsburgh City Paper has hired at least five former In Pittsburgh employees since its parent company bought the rival alternative newsweekly last month. It is also looking at picking up some of the closed paper's regular contributors and syndicated material.
Radio-station operator Saga Communications is the new owner of Champaign, Ill.'s The Octopus, which it bought earlier this month from Yesse! Communications. Senior Vice President Wayne Lada says Saga plans to add staff and build circulation.
Creative Loafing Savannah has merged with Connect Savannah, a community weekly. The non-AAN alternative weekly was owned by Debbie Eason founder of the Creative Loafing chain, and its publisher Kyle Sims.
Lee Newquist, the owner of AAN's newest independent newsweekly, says there’s plenty of room to grow Fort Worth Weekly. The special relationship between the paper he bought this week and the Dallas Observer may allow cooperative ad sales efforts, and neither paper’s going to park its boxes on the other paper’s turf, Newquist says.
