AAN's Convention in New Orleans will feature events that ensure participants can take full advantage of this year's "Saints and Sinners" theme.
As Gambit marks the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, co-owners Clancy and Margo DuBos have sent a message to AAN which will be distributed to members in an email today.
Gambit publisher Margo DuBos and her husband, political editor Clancy DuBos, will be honored with the Anti-Defamation League's A.I. Botnick "Torch of Liberty Award" at a Dec. 14 dinner in New Orleans. "Under the direction of Margo and Clancy, Gambit has won scores of local, regional and national awards for innovative, incisive and robust journalism," the letter from the ADL reads. "The weekly's editorial positions reflect the ADL's commitment to equal opportunity and opposition to bigotry in any form."
Gambit's bittersweet anniversary issue includes reflections from a number of notable former staffers on the history of the paper and of New Orleans. "There could not be a time when the mission we imagined 25 years ago could be more relevant, or more urgent," writes Gambit founder Gary Esolen. AAN and its members who helped out in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina are given thanks in an article by Eileen Loh Harrist on Gambit's role in the alt-weekly world. And Publisher Margo DuBos says that the Gambit's current small staff and tight temporary quarters remind her of the paper's early days in "a wonderful way": "Everyone here is doing the work of three people and doing it with such strong feelings and emotional ties to their jobs."
Even though Hurricane Katrina left its office (pictured) submerged under more than two feet of water, co-owners Margo and Clancy DuBos always knew the paper would make a comeback. "We're about to celebrate our 25th anniversary [at Gambit]," says Margo. "How could I work that hard and get the company where it is and walk away from that?" The paper will initially operate from a temporary office space in Metairie, La., but it will have to do so without editor Michael Tisserand, who has made the difficult decision to relocate with his family to the Chicago area.
It’s a good thing the AAN convention seminars are starting an hour later this year. “The attendees are going to be up late,” says Margo DuBos, publisher of host paper Gambit Weekly.
