The anniversary package takes a look back at how the San Jose alt-weekly got off the ground and highlights some of the paper's most talked-about articles. The issue is dedicated to the memory of Julia Smith, a founding member of the Metro staff who succumbed to cancer last Monday.
Ian Blackburn, who in 1991 began the Knoxville, Tenn., alt-weekly with Ashley Capps, Rand Pearson and Margaret Weston, is leaving the paper. In an article titled "Farewell, Ian," associate editor Jack Neely calls Blackburn, who's held the title of systems manager in recent years, a "computer nerd with a wild bohemian heart." According to the article, Blackburn's departure is due, at least in part, to the discontinuation of MetroBlab, the paper's online chat room. Neely calls MetroBlab "a subject of contention" and explains that associate publisher John Wright "pulled the plug on it last month."
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.
The dirty little secret of Silicon Valley governments is that they have been slow to embrace high-tech innovations, many produced by the 7,300 tech companies sitting in their backyards, William Dean Hinton reports for Metro Silicon Valley. In Santa Clara, you still have to view criminal records on microfiche, and there's no reliable search engine on the city of San Jose's Web site. The recognized leaders in E-government aren't on the West Coast but in cities like Nashville, Tenn., and Louisville, Mo.
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.”
