Bob Kittle, editorial page editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune, claims he had never seen the 10-month-old AAN paper when he learned CityBeat Editor David Rolland would be appearing on a local NPR "Editor's Roundtable" alongside him. Directed to CityBeat’s Web site, Kittle was shocked to find profanity -- so shocked, in fact, that he tried unsuccessfully to get Rolland kicked off the radio program, on which Kittle is a regular pundit. "CityBeat is not journalism. It’s trash," Kittle wrote in a letter to radio station KPBS. In this week’s CityBeat, Rolland responds that Kittle’s real intent was to "limit the range of debate" in San Diego, which he says, "has been too narrow ... for too long."
Here's a look at the 2004 annual convention by the numbers -- from attendance to admissions, parties to pierogies, board members to brouhahas. The consensus seems to be that Pittsburgh surprised and delighted AAN.
The owners of the Long Island Press, one of the seven applying papers voted into the association at the Pittsburgh convention, "have begun plotting how to take the paper daily to compete with Newsday," reports the New York Post. Jed Morey, CEO of the paper's parent company, the Morey Organization, which also owns three radio stations on Long Island, tells the Post: "We consider the weekly a trial balloon. The size of this market lends itself to two dailies."
The Board of Directors of Creative Loafing, Inc., announced that it will investigate two of its directors from Cox Newspapers, Inc., owner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The question is whether the two directors used the confidential board meetings to learn enough about publishing alternative newsweeklies to launch "accessAtlanta" as a direct competitor to Creative Loafing (Atlanta).
A few weeks ago the Baltimore Sun launched "LiVE!" its version of the ubiquitous daily paper sop to "young readers." Baltimore City Paper wasted no time in starting its own new weekly "Advice Column for Journalists Looking to Get in on the Lucrative Alt-Weekly Market." Here's a sample: "After more than two years with virtually no homegrown pop-music coverage ... three LiVE! covers in a row devoted to the hot musical acts of today. Ga-zinga! You surely are giving us a run for our money, pop-music-wise, which, of course, as everyone knows, is a big reason people pick up a publication like ours. And that's the idea, right? A publication like ours? Except folks gotta pay for yours."
Washington City Paper leads the field with six nominations in the eighth annual awards contest, followed by the Dallas Observer with five. Among individual contestants, Thomas Francis of Cleveland Scene and Heather Swaim of OC Weekly are nominated twice. The order of finish in the contest will be announced June 6 at the AAN Convention.
Jay Smith and Buddy Solomon, Cox Newspaper executives who sit on the Creative Loafing board as a result of Cox's 25 percent ownership in the alt-weekly chain, were apparently taking notes during the board meetings. The proof? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cox's flagship daily, last week rolled out accessAtlanta, a free-circulation weekly aimed directly at CL's young readers. John Sugg dubs the new paper Creative Loafing's Mini-Me and says CL has taken steps to freeze out Cox's Trojan Horse board members. "This action has exposed [Smith and Solomon] to charges of conflict of interest and the appearance of bad faith and ethics," says CL President and CEO Ben Eason. "We intend to wage this war with everything we have."
A name change and other moves for the Dayton, Ohio, alt-weekly are designed to attract new readers, recover the old and stabilize the bottom line, Publisher Kerry Farley tells AAN News. Among the changes are a renewed focus on suburban issues and a more conservative editorial voice designed to appeal to suburban movers and shakers, Farley says. "It's better to be in a room full of people making decisions than outside with a picket sign," he says.
The city of Dayton, Ohio has a new paper this week: AAN member Impact Weekly changed its name to Dayton City Paper and has "abandon(ed) the bully pulpit," Publisher Kerry Farley tells the Dayton Daily News. According to Farley, Dayton wasn't receptive to the traditional format of an alternative weekly, so in a bid to reach new readers he plans to change the left-leaning paper into a forum for local opinion that spans the ideological spectrum.
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