According to Cleveland's The Plain Dealer, Attorney General Jim Petro is looking for potential antitrust violations that would result from the merger. The paper quotes a senior attorney with Petro's office who said the deal "raises new concerns that combining these two publishing companies would eliminate or restrain competition between them in some markets where they operate rival newsweeklies with overlapping advertising and news coverage." (Ed.: VVM and New Times no longer operate "rival newsweeklies" in the same market.) The attorney was commenting in response to a letter complaining about the merger written by Terry Smith, the editor of AAN-member paper The Athens News.
Jeanne Aufmuth was named president at the San Francisco Film Critics Circle's annual meeting last week, according to an article on Palo Alto online. The organization has members from newspapers, radio and television stations and online publications. In addition to writing for Palo Alto Weekly, Aufmuth teaches film classes for elementary and high school students.
The owner of the Warfield Theater in San Francisco filed suit against Bill Graham Presents on Oct. 13, according to the Bay Guardian. The suit alleges that BGP -- a Clear Channel subsidiary which operates the Warfield under a lease that expires in 2008 -- damaged the value of the theater's name by changing it to the SF Weekly Warfield. The naming rights were sold by BGP in June to SF Weekly-parent New Times.
