The owner of alt-weeklies in Boston, Providence and Portland, Maine, will launch new sites for each paper on Jan. 1, according to the Boston Business Journal. Phoenix Media executive vice president Bradley Mindich says the $200,000 upgrade is a smart investment in light of the growth of Internet advertising. "In five years, it is highly probable that, as a converged media company, the Web could be the largest ad revenue generator for us," says Mindich. The Business Journal also reports that Phoenix competitor The Weekly Dig will launch a new site in March modeled after Boston.com but targeting the 18- to 34-year-old demographic.
Steve Bailey of the Boston Globe looks at the impending battle between Boston Phoenix and Boston's Weekly Dig. He writes that "others have tried to take on [Phoenix publisher Stephen] Mindich and failed," and that the owners of Boston and Philadelphia magazines "have bought the five-year-old Weekly Dig with plans to pour in the resources and turn up the heat on the Phoenix." Bailey paints a picture of Old Guard vs. Youth Movement, of Champion vs. Challenger, before surmising, "More newspapers are better than fewer newspapers."
"This is the the single most gruesome, horrible, despicable, and horrifying thing I've ever seen,'' Boston Phoenix Publisher Stephen Mindich says in an editorial accompanying his paper's link to the unedited video showing Pearl's decapitation. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Mindich decried the fact that the tape had not been more widely viewed and discussed.
Boston Phoenix Publisher Stephen Mindich faces a June 4 contempt hearing for his refusal to turn over his e-mails in a case involving his wife, Superior Court Judge Maria I. Lopez, the Boston Herald reports. A Massachusettes judicial commission investigating Lopez' handling of an attempted rape case issued the subpoena for Mindich's e-mails. Mindich's lawyer, Harvey Silvergate, says he has advised his client not to comply with the subpoena. ``When a court order is unconstitutional, one has a right to appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court,'' Silvergate tells the Herald.
A court has ordered Mindich to release his private emails concerning a rape case in which his wife Maria Lopez was judge. Friends and family of the victim say the sentence Lopez gave the defendant was too lenient and claim Mindich’s emails are part of a “whisper campaign” to discredit the victim. Mindich says the content of the emails is irrelevant and that he’s ready to go to the Supreme Court if necessary to prove his private correspondence is private.
