Arizona State's Reynolds Center for Business Journalism has put its spotlight on the Santa Fe Reporter's AltWeekly Award winning project, "Where's the Money," which attempts to uncover the wealthiest individuals in Santa Fe, N.M.
That's Robert Newman's take, as he profiles yet another alt-weekly for the Society of Publication Designers' "Grids" blog. "The Reporter has an editorial budget for an entire issue that is less than what most national magazines pay for a spot illustration," Newman writes, praising cover designer Angela Moore's ability to create "engaging, timely covers, designed to drive circulation and appeal to the Reporter's readership." She says that despite her small budget, artists like to work for the Reporter because she trusts their instincts. "I'm always being told by illustrators how rare it is to work with someone who doesn't over direct, and I think that's why so many work for us even with our small budget," Moore says.
The Reporter is among the "fabulous papers" cited in a Morning News piece by Leah Finnegan that looks at "papers that defy boundaries, the internet, and, oft times, common reason." Calling the alt-weekly "tiny but hardy," Finnegan says it "covers two things very well: Wild animals and domestic violence," pointing to a quartet of recent stories on those very subjects. "The paper can also boast one of the country's most non-sequitur parenting columns, titled 'Daddy Needs a Drink,'" she writes. That led The Awl's Choire Sicha to dub "Daddy" writer Rob Wilder "our second-favorite parenting columnist."
Small Society, the company whose work on iPhone applications for the Obama campaign, Whole Foods and Zipcar has earned wide recognition and praise in the growing app development field, is partnering with Pre1 Software and the parent company of Willamette Week and Santa Fe Reporter to develop an iPhone publishing platform which they hope to make available to AAN publishers by late 2009. "We think this may be the killer app for alt weeklies," Willamette Week editor Mark Zusman says.
The alt-weekly is commemorating the occasion with a host of features, including the video of 35 years of covers embedded below, a Q&A with co-founder Richard McCord, a look back at memorable ads through the years and more. Reporter editor Julia Goldberg tells AAN News that the city has also dubbed June 17, 2009, "Santa Fe Reporter Day" in honor of the paper's 35th birthday.
Jolene Nenibah Yazzie, who works in the alt-weekly's production department, has three digital prints on display at the National Museum of the American Indian, as part of the Comic Art Indigene exhibition. Yazzie talks to Smithsonian.com about her work, her skateboard company and how she got started as a comic artist. "I had two older brothers. They were really into skateboarding and comic books, and I think I was trying to impress them," she says. "That's pretty much how I got into it."
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has until midnight to decide whether to sign a bill that would repeal the death penalty, and today the Santa Fe Reporter ran an exclusive interview with accused police killer Michael Astorga, who might face the death penalty if he's convicted. Last Friday, the Reporter teamed up with the New Mexico Independent to live-blog the state Senate as it debated the death penalty repeal.
In the old days, when the media reported on problems in the newspaper industry, alternative newspapers weren't included. But alt-weeklies are immune no longer: In 2008, many AAN papers faced some of the same issues afflicting their mainstream brethren in the print media. However, you can still find alt-weeklies that had a pretty good year in 2008. That's just what AAN's editor Jon Whiten did, and he reports on 10 papers that increased revenue in a story published by Editor & Publisher.
Corey Pein wrote a cover story last week on the College of Santa Fe, its party scene and its financial troubles, and now students have created a Facebook group called "People for a Public Apology from Corey Pein." The group says the story "grossly misrepresented" students and the college, and calls "for a retraction of the story, as well as a public apology by Corey Pein, also to be printed in the Reporter." The group currently has 83 members, including some SFR writers who seem to have joined to defend Pein and round out the conversation.
