For 35 years Random Lengths News has covered the L.A. Harbor Area, an area that has been overlooked by publications such as the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Breeze.
Creative Loafing Tampa celebrates its 25th Anniversary this week and to commemorate they have planned a week's worth of festivities highlighting the eventful history of the publication.
Bengfort has served as associate publisher of Urban Tulsa Weekly since 2005.
Longtime advertising leader James Fisher is leaving the Mountain Xpress. Since joining the paper in 1995, he has been an ad rep, sales manager, ad director and most recently, director of business development.
The Arizona Newspapers Association recognized Tucson Weekly for General Excellence and reporter Jim Nintzel as Journalist of the Year, among other awards.
On April 28, the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) filed a legal complaint against Los Angeles after the council refused to "cure and correct" an inadequately noticed Feb. 18 agenda item that called for 4,000 city workers and positions to be cut. This complaint follows a letter sent by Random Lengths News publisher James Preston Allen to City Council president Garcetti and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich protesting what his paper believes to be a violation of the Brown Act. After Garcetti and Trutanich failed to respond, Allen contacted CFAC, which decided to file suit.
Ohio state Sen. Kevin Coughlin has been dismissed as a defendant in James Renner's lawsuit over his termination by the Scene, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. The alt-weekly has requested the rest of the suit be tossed out as well; the judge is reportedly considering that request now. Renner's suit alleges he was unjustly fired over an unpublished story about an alleged affair involving Coughlin and a former campaign aide.
"To the uninitiated, Random Lengths News may appear to be a leftist journalistic exercise carried on by a deluded few, but it is a vital news source for an increasingly frustrated constituency," Julia Murphy writes in a profile of the San Pedro, Calif., alt-weekly that appeared in a recent edition of Swindle magazine (not available online). "There is an essential nexus between Main Street business, progressive politics and the well-being of the communities we serve," publisher James Allen says. "The locals trust [our paper] even if they don't agree with it."
James Renner's The Serial Killer's Apprentice: And 12 Other True Stories of Cleveland's Most Intriguing Unsolved Crimes, which was released on Halloween by Gray & Co., looks at 13 unsolved mysteries, from a 1964 murder of a teenager to the 2005 death of a dancer. It is Renner's second true-crime book.
The local peace group San Pedro Neighbors for Peace & Justice has named James Preston Allen 2008 Peacemaker of the Year "in recognition of the consistent coverage by his paper of the peace community, for his critical editorials and for the newspaper's hard hitting exposes of the lies and war profiteering of the war on Iraq and Afghanistan," according to a press release.
