John Mecklin, former editor at SF Weekly and Phoenix New Times, has been named editor in chief of High Country News, a biweekly newsmagazine focused on the American West.
In an article in this week's edition of SF Weekly, Editor John Mecklin suggests that the San Francisco Bay Guardian is facing financial problems brought about largely from the purchase of a new office building, and that these problems might be behind the Bay Guardian's suit against SF Weekly, East Bay Express and New Times, Inc. In order to counter the suit's claim that New Times' Bay Area papers are discounting ads below cost, Mecklin offers accounts of the Guardian engaging in those very practices.
Editor John Mecklin takes aim at a "smelly BS-offensive emanating" from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, which, he says, contains "huge doses of distortion, some outright falsehood, and very little truth." Mecklin says the "capper" to this offensive is the predatory-pricing lawsuit that Bay Guardian filed last week against SF Weekly and its sister publication, East Bay Express. The Bay Guardian has long tried "to convince San Francisco of the dangerous evil that a New Times-owned SF Weekly represents," writes Mecklin. "Over that time, SF Weekly has sailed ahead, and the Bay Guardian has foundered." (Second item on linked page.) Also addressed: SF Weekly's response to Puni-comic controversy. (Main item on linked page.)
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.
