In a piece focusing primarily on his support for a statewide ballot initiative requiring parental notification prior to an abortion, the Times also tells us this about the owner of the San Diego Reader: His friends say he's a "a cerebral man who tilts libertarian but is defined mostly by his deep religious beliefs. He attends Mass daily and counts priests among his close friends. He once took an extended leave from his newspaper to work with a missionary group on Los Angeles' skid row." And, "(d)espite his substantial wealth," Holman (pictured) -- who served with the Navy in Vietnam and was awarded the Purple Heart -- "takes the bus to work, eats sack lunches and lives modestly."
In his final column as editor of Miami New Times, Jim Mullin (pictured) touches on the "dramatic, dizzying change" that has taken place in the city since the paper debuted over eighteen years ago. Mullin says a paper like his, "with a small staff, closely reflects the personalities who produce it" and gives a shout out to all those who played a role in helping him chronicle the flux in this city that is "long on illusion and short on memory" and where "change is the only constant."
After 18 years at the alt-weekly, Jim Mullin (pictured) will step down from his position. The announcement comes less than a month after former city official Arthur Teele's suicide, which came on the heels of a New Times cover story about Teele's involvement with a transvestite prostitute. Mullin says that while he was "profoundly affected" by the tragedy, he'd been considering leaving the paper for the past year. His successor will be Chuck Strouse, the current editor of New Times Broward-Palm Beach.
The outgoing editor, Jim Harper, told the St. Petersburg Times that Weekly Planet president and CEO Ben Eason "wants a different kind of editor" and is conducting a nationwide search. Harper will retain his post during the hunt for his replacement. He has been the Planet's editor for 15 months. Before that, he worked for more than 20 years at the Times.
Newspapers in the Phoenix-based alt-weekly chain picked up seven of the 11 awards handed out last month in the under 150,000 circulation category of the National Association of Black Journalists' annual contest. Dallas Observer's Jim Schutze and Julie Lyons, Cleveland Scene's Thomas Francis and Riverfront Times' Jeannette Batz all were named first-place winners.
Dallas Observer won two first place awards in the 2003 Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards, and The Village Voice and Phoenix New Times each took one. East Bay Express won second place in the General Excellence category for papers with circulations 50,001 to 100,000, and New Times papers were finalists in nine other categories.
Tom Finkel, editor of City Pages (Twin Cities) until mid-2002, returns to his hometown of St. Louis and to New Times as the new editor of Riverfront Times. He replaces Jim Nesbitt. Before taking the position to Minneapolis, Finkel was managing editor of Miami New Times. "I'm thrilled to be able to move back to my hometown and be a part of the Riverfront Times," Finkel says. He starts March 3.
