Chet Hardin's topics "are provocative, contemporary and often important," judges for the Association's annual Better Newspaper Contest say. "It is hard to distinguish his hard news stories from features, and that's a great compliment," they write. AAN members were well-represented in the rest of the contest as well. Metroland won one additional first-place and one third-place award; the Ithaca Times received one first-place and one second-place as well as three third-place awards; and Syracuse New Times took home four first-place and two second-place awards.
Inspired by a colleague who asked what his neighborhood looked like, David Brickman began an ongoing series of photographs taken in Albany's Arbor Hill and West Hill. As described in the Times-Union, Brickman's works emphasize "radiant primary colors and architectural detail" on streets usually dominated by "vacancy, decay and struggle." Brickman is currently on leave from Metroland, and he will open his first solo exhibition in Manhattan in June, the Times-Union reports.
Tom Nattell, 52, an alt-weekly contributor and lifelong activist, succumbed to cancer on Tuesday. "By day, he worked most of his adulthood as a research scientist," reads an Albany Times Union article that preceded his death. "Nights and weekends, [he] was tear-gassed, arrested and imprisoned" for standing on "the front lines of seemingly every issue of social justice that washed up the Hudson." Given only months to live, he was "keeping a daily journal, practicing yoga, e-mailing friends, railing against President Bush" and finding peace where he could. In his most recent column for Metroland, Nattell wrote: "This column . . . has provided some solace for me during these recent difficulties, and I appreciate having had the opportunity to share my thoughts with you over the years."
Metroland writer Travis Durfee spent the past month taking bucket baths, sleeping on mats and eating lamb kabob as he traveled throughout the Central Asian nation of Afghanistan. In the small city of Kunduz, he observed the crush of patients hoping for an appointment with an eye-doctor's assistant during a two-week camp run by the National Organization for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation. An estimated 2 percent of the country's population is blind, many of them from treatable conditions.
Travis Durfee's schedule for three days is as hectic as any presidential candidate's. He catches six of the seven main Democratic presidential hopefuls as he criss-crosses New Hampshire. Some of his observations: Joe Lieberman is trying to use President Bush to campaign for him; a subtler, more refined Howard Dean can still bring listeners to the edge of their seats with his message; John Edwards oozes compassion as he works a room the same way he might work a jury for a settlement; Dennis Kucinich supporters wonder if they should vote on principle or to win; the Wesley Clark crowd's enthusiasm seems like overcompensation; and John Kerry looks like New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain before it crumbled.
Across the country, alternative newsweeklies ditched their planned front pages as the awesome events of Tuesday unfolded. East Coast papers like The Village Voice and Washington City Paper are sharing stories and pictures with colleagues from Maine to California.
