The city of about 50,000 residents near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is proposing an outright ban on news boxes in its historic downtown district, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. Councilwoman Darlene Freed says the council, which will hold a public hearing on the issue next month, is divided on the ban. Freed says the boxes "are not particularly attractive, but I think you have to have access to newspapers on Main Street ... it's about the First Amendment." Freed also says she's talking with city officials about regulating the boxes rather than banning them. "I suggest they should at least talk with publishers about resolving these issues," says Fort Worth Weekly publisher Lee Newquist, who has several news boxes along the city's Main Street corridor.
In an unsigned column, Fort Worth Weekly bids farewell to its "fiercely independent and damn-the-torpedoes" editor John Forsyth, who was fired this week by new owner Lee Newquist. "We can only hope that Lee Newquist will make good on his promise to support the same kind of gutsy journalism that Forsyth did," says the author(s).
Lee Newquist, the owner of AAN's newest independent newsweekly, says there’s plenty of room to grow Fort Worth Weekly. The special relationship between the paper he bought this week and the Dallas Observer may allow cooperative ad sales efforts, and neither paper’s going to park its boxes on the other paper’s turf, Newquist says.
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.
