The Current kicks off its 20th anniversary year with a Jan. 18 retrospective of the paper's two decades, from breaking news about then-Mayor Henry Cisneros' adulterous affair, to the phallic cartoon that prompted businesses to ban the paper, to award-winning stories about media ownership. Journalist Steven G. Kellman writes of the newspaper culture in San Antonio: "Though the entire editorial staff of the Current is outnumbered by just the sports department at the Express-News, they keep the Hearst daily on its toes often by stepping on the toes of the powerful." The Current will auction framed digital prints of its most notable covers at four anniversary events over the course of the year.
When Lisa Sorg found out a Federal Communications Commission panel had scheduled a hearing in San Antonio, she wanted her community to be well prepared to talk about how media ownership affects what news they hear -- and don't hear. So the editor of the San Antonio Current and her small staff tackled the issue of conglomerates taking over the airwaves, turning out a two-part, multi-story series that won an AltWeekly Award for Media Reporting/Criticism. This is the 12th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
Jeremy Voas, editor of Detroit's Metro Times since October 2001, was fired last week, reports the Detroit News. He contends the dismissal was prompted by his disagreement with publisher Lisa Rudy over the paper's mission in general and its emphasis on special sections in particular. "I thought if the paper wanted to do more of that kind of thing they needed to hire a special staff to do more promotional issues," he says. Curt Guyette, news editor at the Metro Times, says Voas' departure will be addressed in Wednesday's issue.
Following a nine-year absence, former account executive Lisa Rudy (pictured) returns to Detroit's alt-weekly to replace David Jost, who resigned as publisher last month. Rudy says Metro Times is her kind of paper: “I like everything it stands for. It’s just so community-based. It's hip, but it's real. I like the kind of reader that is interested in Metro Times, readers that like to be challenged.”
Two New Times investigative series were selected as winners in the 2002 John Bartlow Martin Awards, sponsored by Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. First place went to "Fallout," a look at the U.S. Navy's radioactive legacy in the Bay Area by SF Weekly's Lisa Davis. Phoenix New Times staff writer Amy Silverman captured third place for her special series "Slammed," which exposed abuses in Arizona's juvenile justice system. Sandwiched between them was Katherine Boo, former managing editor of Washington City Paper, for her story in The New Yorker on welfare mothers.
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.
Lisa Davis joins writers from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker in winning a prestigious George Polk Award. Her two-part series, "Fallout", which won in the environmental reporting category, exposed mishandled radioactive waste at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard at Hunter's Point.
