"The cutback in cartoons has less to do with the budget than it does with page counts going down," Kevin Allman tells "Idiot Box" cartoonist Matt Bors. "What you see as $25 for a cartoon, the publishers see as potential ad space that could sell for 10x that amount." Allman says that in New Orleans, they ended up sticking with local cartoonists rather than nationally syndicated ones. "Their drawings are the equivalent of local news stories," he says. "And I try to treat them with as much respect as I do the columnists, but they have to suffer too with the smaller page layouts."
Matt Bors and Tom Tomorrow both report that they have lost several papers in the last few months.
At the Monday meeting of Missoula's city council, Independent owner and publisher Matt Gibson said he wants the city to be able to place its mandatory legal notices in the alt-weekly, rather than in a paid newspaper, the Missoulian reports. Gibson told the council that Missoula County places such ads in the Independent, and saves about $20,000 a year by doing so. The problem is that Montana law says cities must run the legal notices in a paid newspaper. Gibson told the council he'd like the Montana League of Cities and Towns to take up the matter during the upcoming legislative session.
Publisher Matt Fabyan tells the Cleveland Plain-Dealer that his fears of newsroom tension between employees of former competitors Cleveland Free Times and Scene were unfounded. "After the first day, people have jelled really well," he says. The Plain-Dealer runs down some facts about the new paper, which debuted last week after the two papers were merged by new owners Times-Shamrock. The first issue came in at 100 pages, which was up from 72 in Free Times' last issue and 60 in Scene's last one. The new paper's circulation is 60,000, which is 10,000 more than pre-merger circulation totals for each paper, but down from a high of 100,000 a few years ago. Fabyan also tells the P-D that total staff loss was about 10 people. Each paper had about 25 staff members pre-merger, and the new paper comes in around 40, half from the old Free Times and half from the old Scene.
The other shoe has dropped. Times-Shamrock just announced that it is buying Cleveland Free Times as well as the Cleveland Scene, and will merge the two publications into a single paper on July 23. The new paper will be called the Scene, and current Free Times publisher Matt Fabyan will run it. "This is a great addition to our existing group of alternative newsweeklies," says Don Farley, group publisher of Times-Shamrock's stable of alt-weeklies, which now numbers five. "We look forward to serving the greater Cleveland community for many, many years." UPDATE: Fabyan tells the Plain-Dealer that the deal had "been in the works for a while," and Crain's Cleveland Business reports that staffers at each paper are being asked to reapply to the new paper.
Matt Coker, who came to Sacramento from the OC Weekly last Spring, was dismissed earlier this month, the Sacramento Bee reports. In addition, the paper's arts editor, Jonathan Kiefer, has resigned. News & Review CEO Jeff von Kaenel tells the Bee that Melinda Welsh will serve as interim editor until a permanent replacement is found. "(Melinda and I) have worked together for 20 years and we'll continue to make sure we're putting out a great paper," he says.
On Monday, the OC Weekly staffer and ¡Ask a Mexican! author received a Latino Spirit Award from the caucus. The award honors Latinos who have made a positive contribution to the state. "Why did I receive the award? Blame Hector de la Torre," Arellano says of the assemblyman who nominated him for the honor. At the ceremony, de la Torre "read some questions to and answers from The Mexican," according to Sacramento News & Review editor Matt Coker's report. "In an attempt to show the column is not frivilous [sic], de la Torre gave an example of the historial research that goes into Arellano's answers," using a column on "gringos vs. gabachos" as an example.
Portland's city auditor Gary Blackmer (pictured), angry about his treatment in a story in the Portland Mercury, approached reporter Matt Davis in City Hall, called him "despicable," and threw in a "fuck you" for good measure, according to the Mercury. Blackmer's beef comes down to the question of whether or not he provided comment for Davis' story on racial profiling by the city's cops. The story noted that Blackmer "declined to comment," yet he and a colleague both seem to think they provided enough comment by quoting from an earlier report. "To say [they] declined comment is fair, and I would challenge them to state publicly, here, why they did not," Davis writes. The Willamette Week's Ian Gillingham thinks that Blackmer's explosion was inspired by the newly released film The Bucket List, "in which two geezers start doing all the things they want to do before they die."
Reacting to the news that McClatchy plans to eliminate half of the artist jobs at its flagship Sacramento Bee and outsource the work to India, the Sacramento News & Review posted an ad for a "Media Company CEO" on Delhi Craigslist yesterday. "The value of McClatchy's stock has plummeted," the ad reads. "We are thereby accepting applications that we will dutifully forward to McClatchy for 'outsourced' CEOs who will work for much less than McClatchy's current CEO (who hauls in a cool $1 million, or up to $2.38 million with bonuses. Why are you laughing?). Your duties will include bailing water out of a sinking ship, blacking or tearing out bad McClatchy financial news from publications distributed in house (including your own) and dancing while angry board members shoot bullets at your feet. Serious inquires only." News & Review editor Matt Coker, reached by email, tells AAN News that they've already received two applications: one from the Phillipines, and another from a headhunter in New Delhi.
Matt Smith writes that this week's issue of The Nation, which features Jon Wiener's lament about changes that have taken place at LA Weekly since the paper changed hands in 2006, "reads as if were (sic) a schizophrenic-produced theme issue on your host, Village Voice Media." According to Smith, the July 16 issue of the weekly magazine juxtaposes Wiener's criticisms of the "staff cuts, heavy workload and misdirected investigative talent" at VVM with "another 3,000-word-plus story whose central thrust is based largely around Village Voice Media original reporting." In the latter, Liza Featherstone uses documents revealed in April by SF Weekly as a basis for her reporting on labor boss Andy Stern.
