Kathy Glasgow of Miami New Times interviews Marilese, who came to the United States in 1992 fleeing political violence in her Haitian homeland. Now she has three children, an uncertain place in the United States and a heart filled with dark memories. "Marilise's story of degradation, poverty, and fear begins to reveal a person who in some ways has been an innocent victim all her life, except there's really no such thing," Glasgow writes. "It's hardly inspirational. Perhaps it's allegorical, a story not too far removed from that of every other Haitian woman who ever came here on a boat, except in degrees of darkness. She tells it in a stream of consciousness, pouring out vignettes then suddenly skipping to a different incident years removed. It sounds too awful to have happened, but so do too many stories from Haiti."
Miami New Times sleuths crack the case of the vanishing alternative newsweeklies. The paper wrote a critical story about Eduardo Padron, president of Miami-Dade Community College, and suddenly reports roll in about empty news racks on all the campuses. A 72-year-old journalism student finally produces a smoking gun: he says he was with a security officer who scooped up the papers. The guard sheepishly admitted Padron had ordered security to confiscate them, the student says.
A New York Press veteran takes the helm as publisher. Kim Granowitz succeeds Michael Cohen, who has returned to Miami New Times.
Two former New Times employees write in the Daily Business Review about staff unrest at New Times Broward-Palm Beach. According to Julie Kay and Harris Meyer, the NTB-PB staff wrote a "manifesto" to Editor Chuck Strouse asking for greater editorial independence, among other things.
The work of a half dozen alternative newsweekly music writers appears in “Da Capo Best Music Writing 2001”, published this month. Guest editor, Nick Hornby, calls the collection “a dip full of good stuff.”
Declining ad revenues have hit New Times, forcing layoffs at several papers, including five at Miami New Times. “This year has been a dizzying year for all of us,” Editor Jim Mullin tells the Daily Business Review. The local business journal also reports that the Miami paper has rehired former publisher Michael Cohen, who recently resigned his post at New York Press.
Longtime New Times exec Lee Newquist is the new owner of Fort Worth Weekly. Newquist bought the paper from his now-former employer, ending a 19-year career with the Phoenix-based chain. Prior to the sale, Newquist was executive vice president of operations for New Times and publisher of both Fort Worth Weekly and the Dallas Observer.
