This new video shot by film production company Fire Productions captures three days in the life of the Weekly, from Tuesday's deadline day (for the paper's annual Best Of issue, no less) to Wednesday at the printer and Thursday as the Weekly hits the streets.
"I come to the newspaper business honestly and organically: I was inspired as I read the Washington Post every morning as a 5th grader in 1973," Erik Cushman tells the California Newspaper Publishers Association. "I have a predisposition for foul language and strong whiskey -- and I don't object to hard work." He goes on to discuss how he ended up at the Weekly, the paper's redesigned website and its solar-power initiative.
The Weekly says its five-week Community Fund campaign has raised a total of $529,337 for local nonprofits. A total of 1,609 readers donated to the campaign, in amounts ranging from 27 cents to over $50,000.
The Weekly has completely redesigned its website and launched a corresponding mobile application. Among the cool new features on the site are a local business guide, a local song of the day on the site jukebox and feeds from local blogs and local, state and national news sources. "[The site] will be a boon to our community, expanding our content and how our readers can obtain and interface with it," Weekly CEO Bradley Zeve says. "It offers more in every way -- more accessibility and more content." The site and the mobile app were both designed in-house by longtime Weekly staffer Kevin Smith, who says he's happy to roll out the project to the public. "Plus," he adds, "maybe now I can have time to read my kids a good-night story."
On Tuesday, the storms battering California knocked out the power at the Weekly's headquarters -- in the middle of deadline day, no less. But with the help of a car mechanic across the street and a 5,000-watt generator, the staff successfully pushed through the dark hours. When the power returned, deputy editor Mark C. Anderson writes, "we were well on our way to a complete paper."
Weekly reporter Kera Abraham took home a third-place award in the Outstanding Small Market Reporting (Print) category in the Society of Environmental Journalists' annual awards for reporting on the environment. "Abraham did an excellent job with two divergent environmental issues," the judges write, "the omnipresent plastic in the aquatic environment, and the destructive environmental practices of marijuana farms on federal park land."
The Weekly celebrates an historic milestone with a special 20th anniversary issue that hit the streets (and the web) yesterday. The 200-page issue, which is saddle stitched and features the Weekly's first-ever glossy cover, "takes a long backwards glance at the people, the institutions, the buildings, the parties and the natural disasters that have helped shape the community" since Coast Weekly (the paper's original name) debuted in the fall of 1988. "The community support has been fantastic for this issue, in much the same way it has been for the last twenty years," says founder and CEO Bradley Zeve.
Chuck Thurman died last weekend, the Weekly reports. He was 53 years old. Over 14 years, Thurman held a variety of roles at the Weekly: arts writer, contributing editor, arts & entertainment editor, and associate editor. He left the paper in 2002. "Chuck had a deep connection to this community and a great love for it, and more zest for life than most," writes Weekly founder and CEO Bradley Zeve. "He also was committed to this newspaper and instrumental in helping the Weekly carve out its mission and its place in Monterey County". A celebration of Thurman's life will be held Saturday, May 17, at 2pm, at the Wharf Theater in Monterey.
On the heels of the presidential candidate's "testy exchange" with a New York Times reporter last week, Politico talks to some Arizona journalists who describe "a sometimes pugnacious politician whose media strategy is a far cry from joking asides and backslaps around the barbecue pit." Former Arizona Republic national editor Tina May, who now edits the Monterey County Weekly, recalls a Republic story on McCain's temper in 2006 that led to her reporter being kicked "off the bus." She tells Politico it's "a perfect example of how McCain people treated the Republic differently than the national media," which has, in exchange, often flattered the Republican senator. Politico says that Phoenix New Times' Amy Silverman -- "one of McCain's most persistent critics" -- documented the romance between McCain and the national press in 1997's "prescient" story, "The Pampered Politican."
"Certainly, the Weekly has accomplished the showy side of going green," says the magazine, referring to the paper's installation of 162 solar panels on its roof earlier this year, "but the Weekly also strives to be green below its roof." Among the small-scale green programs E&P highlights: having a staffer repair bicycles for employees to use in commuting, buying organic produce from the "Vegetable Fairy," and using soy ink. Early last year, the Weekly began calculating its entire carbon footprint, including energy consumption from employee commutes and work routes, with a "Green Team" convening monthly to review the efforts. When the paper repeated its calculation this April, the footprint was 16 percent smaller. "For us this has been a several-pronged initiative," Weekly owner and CEO Bradley Zeve says. "One is around energy, one is around supplies and material, and a third is around our consciousness."
