A recent surge in newspaper theft has a coalition of Bay Area newspapers -- including the East Bay Express and the San Francisco Bay Guardian -- asking local authorities to help pursue thieves both on the street and at the recycling businesses where they fence the stolen goods, according to the Berkeley Daily Planet. The Express is doing more than just asking cops for help, though. The Planet reports that after complaints to local police failed to result in the apprehension of a man repeatedly seen stealing papers, the alt-weekly hired a private investigator. On his first night out, the private eye caught the thief with more than 500 copies of the Express -- and nearly as many Bay Guardians -- in his truck. Express publisher Hal Brody says that stopping the thefts will take more than arresting street-level thieves -- rather, he thinks cops need to target the recycling businesses that accept the contraband. A meeting between Oakland police and local publishers to discuss how to stem the tide of theft is planned for the near future, the Planet reports.
Police say they caught an East Bay man loading piles of free papers -- including the East Bay Express -- into a vehicle early Wednesday morning, the Oakland Tribune reports. In California, taking more than 25 papers is a crime. A witness called police after following the suspect during repeated trips to a recycling center, where the suspect would turn in the papers for cash, according to a police source. No word on if this was the same thief featured on this site last month.
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.
"Last Tuesday I lost a dear friend," writes publisher Louis Fortis. "Dusti was the first person I hired when I arrived at the Shepherd Express more than 10 years ago. She was very special to the Shepherd and also to me." The 36-year-old is survived by her 7-year-old twins, Ashley and Riley. For those in the area, a memorial visitation will be held Saturday, Dec. 8, from 11 am to 1:45 pm at Church and Chapel, 380 W. Bluemound Road, Waukesha, Wisconsin. Memorial services will begin at 2 pm. In lieu of flowers, a memorial trust for the twins will be set up by Dusti's parents. Look for more details on the trust on AAN.org soon.
"Why can't I, as a fellow weekly-newspaper guy, muster up much sympathy for the Shepherd Express?," asks Weekly associate editor Bill Frost in response to yesterday's news that Milwaukee's alt-weekly was having some distribution issues involving the local daily (and its free weekly) and coffee giant Starbucks. "Because City Weekly has never been allowed into Salt Lake City Starbucks; at least the Express had a foot in the door for a while," he writes. "Now, just as Salt Lake City residents have for years, Milwaukee-ites will have to sip their overpriced Charbucks while reading an inferior knockoff of a weekly that has an exclusive, paid-for in."
"We were thrown out of Starbucks because of a deal the Journal Sentinel cut with Starbucks' regional office, where the Journal Sentinel demanded that the Shepherd Express be excluded from Starbucks newspaper racks," writes Express publisher and editor-in-chief Louis Fortis. The Sentinel-owned free weekly MKE then ran an ad claiming it was "the exclusive free weekly" available at Starbucks stores around Milwaukee. But a regional manager says "the decision as to whether a particular Starbucks carries the Shepherd will be at the discretion of each individual store manager." The controversy with the coffee giant comes as the paper celebrates its 25th anniversary. In this week's cover story, assistant editor Lisa Kaiser traces the Express' journey from "a monthly 'free expression magazine' by English majors at UW-Milwaukee" to what it is today.
A few weeks back, we noted that the San Francisco Bay Guardian had joined a number of Bay Area groups in the investigative project to continue the slain journalist's work. But there was one glaring omission from the list of participating organizations: The East Bay Express, which five years ago investigated the group Bailey was writing about and whose staffers suffered death threats because of it, was not included. "It's definitely odd that the one newspaper that owned the story of Your Black Muslim Bakery wasn't invited to participate in this project until after it was formally announced," Express editor Stephen Buel tells SF Weekly. Buel says he'd heard that one of the news outlets in the Bailey Project had a beef with his paper, but that a project organizer recently assured him that it was not an intentional snub and invited the Express to participate. The paper has declined the belated invitation, and will continue to pursue the story on its own.
Taking a cue from friends at the Sacramento News & Review, last month the Express launched "Urban Express-ions," a project that hopes to "pre-graffiti" distribution boxes by inviting local artists to adorn them with spray paint. The paper put out a call for artists, held a "painting day" in it's parking lot, and then displayed the results in a prominent Oakland gallery before putting the news boxes back on the street. "Instead of being blighted, we want these to be community art," says publisher Jody Colley, who spoke to AAN News with account manager Mary Younkin about the project. "We have new ownership at the Express and we really want to connect to the artist community more than we have in the past. This is kind of our first project doing that."
BONUS: Check out a video of the painting day below.
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