In the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists' Page One Contest, the alt-weekly came out on top in News and Feature - Investigative; Sports - Feature; Graphics and Illustrations - Spot News; and Photojournalism - Portrait. The paper also had four second- and third-place finishes.
That's his take after picking up a copy this week, though he says he has "hurt feelings" about City Pages "running the Twin Cities Reader [a now-defunct AAN paper he used to edit] out of business." Carr, who also served as editor of Washington City Paper and is now a reporter for the New York Times, tells the Minnesota Monitor: "I share newspaper approaches with [Village Voice Media]. I've always been equal opportunity in terms of choosing opponents and choosing targets." He adds that VVM papers "in general are far superior to most weeklies, and they fund great journalism, pay a living wage, pay healthcare."
City Pages' Dara Moskowitz was the big winner last night as the annual James Beard Foundation Media Awards were announced in New York. She took home first place prizes in two categories: Newspaper, Newsletter, or Magazine Columns and Newspaper Writing on Spirits, Wine, or Beer (which she shared with The Wall Street Journal's Eric Felten). The Cleveland Scene's Elaine Cicora placed first in the Newspaper Feature Writing Without Recipes category. This marks the second year in a row that Moskowitz has won a James Beard Award.
Dan Lacey "thinks he is incredibly clever," writes Jonathan Kaminsky. As we reported yesterday, the man behind the Faithmouse blog has put his City Pages "Best Of" award up for auction on eBay, but lacking an actual certificate, he offered to draw one for the winner instead. Now City Pages is getting into the auction game. "If anyone wants the real deal, and not that phoney-baloney certificate that Lacey drew up in his spare time, I snatched it from our ad people before they got around to sending it out," Kaminsky says. "I've got it sitting right here at my desk, and I'm ready to talk turkey."
"I've enjoyed my City Pages award for the past week, and now I'd like to pass it along to someone, anyone, who might really deserve it," writes Dan Lacey. His Faithmouse blog was recently named Best Locally Generated Blog (Right-Wing) in the paper's annual Best Of the Twin Cities issue, and now he's put it up for your bidding pleasure on eBay. Since City Pages doesn't actually issue physical certificates, Lacey will draw one to spec for the auction winner. Alas, the bidding action hasn't been too hot thus far: no bids have yet been placed.
But Kevin Hoffman tells the Pioneer Press he wants the paper to be "more adventurous" and less partisan. "I'm probably a bit less ideological than my predecessor was," says Hoffman, who took over when Steve Perry resigned earlier this year. While City Pages co-founder Kris Henning decries "the corporatization" of the paper, staff writer Mike Mosedale says the major difference now is that Hoffman is more hands-on and runs a more disciplined newsroom than Perry.
Britt Robson, who will leave March 1, tells the Star-Tribune his chief reasons for quitting were editor Steve Perry's recent resignation and the hiring of an editor from out of town to succeed him. "There was absolutely no pressure on me to leave," Robson says. "I just didn't want to be an unhappy, divisive force on the staff, which I would have been if I had stayed." He had spent over 10 years at the paper and was among Steve Perry's closest confidants, according to the Star-Tribune.
The latest to leave are OC Weekly feature editor Rebecca Schoenkopf, whose Commie Girl column won last year's big-paper AltWeekly Award for best political column, and City Pages music critic Jim Walsh, who served two stints at the Minneapolis alt-weekly, the latest beginning in 2003. OC Register columnist Frank Mickadeit reports that Schoenkopf has "been ready to leave the Weekly for some time, simply because she needed a change" and that "her dream job would be editor-in-chief of an alternative weekly somewhere." In her farewell column, Schoenkopf puts the paper's recent ownership change into context: "It could have been worse: Dean Singleton could have bought our newspaper. At least this way, we still get to call people twats." (OC Weekly music editor Chris Ziegler also left the paper, Schoenkopf notes in her column.)
