"Because I am most decidedly not a politician, I am best qualified for political office," says John Sugg, senior editor, Creative Loafing Atlanta, in announcing his candidacy for the 7th Congressional District. Sugg, who is running a write-in campaign as a Whig, says fellow journalists shouldn't question his political activism. "Your bosses have neutered real journalism by creating the cult of objectivity -- passionless journalism that is beholden to the status quo." Sugg is challenging "ho-hum" Democrat Mike Berlon and John Linder, "a water-carrier for the most corrupt elements of corporate America," he writes in his "Fishwrapper" column.
"Can you trust an alternative newspaper over 30?" Creative Loafing Atlanta's Senior Editor John Sugg asks. Well, yes and no. In a column published in Weekly Planet Tampa, Sugg's old stomping ground, he says alt-weeklies may be greying and corporate but they're still kicking the dailies' butts. Mainstream media have "dumbed themselves down to the point of imbecility," Sugg says. "Maybe now the alternative press will stand and achieve its true greatness, revealing what the powerful don't want revealed." If they don't, Sugg's hoping some firebrand now in high school is waiting in the wings to create the next underground press.
Andy Newman, editor of Pittsburgh City Paper, interviews John Backderf, "known to everyone but his mother simply as Derf." Derf's comic strip "The City" strip appears in more than 50 AAN member papers. Newman asks Derf about two comic books he just published, one called "My Friend Dahmer" about being high school pals with serial cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer and another about working on the back of a garbage truck.
A major international espionage saga is unfolding across the United States. It's been hush-hush so far, largely because the implications could be a major embarrassment for the government. The spy story is even more touchy because it isn't Saddam, Fidel, Osama or even what passes nowadays for the KGB spying on America -- but our "friend" in the war against "evil," Israel. Creative Loafing last week obtained a copy of the 60-page Drug Enforcement Agency report that provides the basis of the allegations, and CL's John Sugg writes the story in his Fishwrapper column.
Lisa Davis' "Fallout" series, which won a George Polk Award a few weeks ago, wins a 2002 IRE Award for investigative journalism. Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. honors Davis and John Mecklin of the SF Weekly for “Fallout,” which reveals "how a Bayfront property about to be turned over to the city by the Navy may be far more contaminated with radioactive waste than current cleanup plans acknowledge." Other AAN members Phoenix New Times and New Times Los Angeles were the two finalists in the local circulation weekly division, giving New Times a lock on the division.
After 24 years with East Bay Express, Editor John Raeside is hanging it up. Raeside has announced his resignation, effective March 1. Managing Editor Stephen Buel will take his place. Raeside says the paper has had some remarkable accomplishments in its first year under New Times ownership and that he feels he's leaving it in good hands.
The Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City are boosting the Salt Lake City Weekly first-quarter bottom line. The alt-weekly is also producing its first City Guide for the games and plans to make it an annual publication. Publisher John Saltas expects a 20 percent circulation jump in the next couple of months helped along by a 10 percent increase in ad rates for the five Olympic issues.
Utah has liberalized its liquor advertising laws, and Salt Lake City Weekly has lost no time in snagging a Jim Beam ad. It appears on page 7; on page 25, in a full-page ad donated by the paper, the Church of Latter Day Saints is given space to argue that alcohol advertising is a threat to society. Publisher John Saltas tells the Salt Lake City Tribune the timing was a coincidence.
