Howard Witt has resigned as editor of Washington City Paper, effective Nov. 16. “Please join me in congratulating Howard,” Jane Levine, publisher of City Paper's parent Chicago Reader Inc., says in a memo to staff. "The search will take as long as it takes to find a good editor," Levine says. Meanwhile, Associate Editor Richard Byrne has been named interim editor. MORE: The Washington Post reports Friday morning that Witt is leaving to take a job covering the State Department for the Chicago Tribune.
"Being ahead was a lot less complicated than being alone," Andy Newman, editor of Pittsburgh City Paper, tells the Pittsburgh Business Times. The staff plans to meet this week to redesign and remake City Paper after its parent company bought rival newsweekly In Pittsburgh last month and closed it. City Paper has since then absorbed a number of former In Pittsburgh employees. Newman says he would rather "drive carpet staples" into his gums than conduct a focus group, but admits he's asked some other journalists for input on the new design.
Newspaper companies in the District of Columbia, including Washington City Paper, reached a voluntary agreement with downtown business officials on newsracks. Under the agreement, publishers will use demonstration sites to test three different rack systems to see which one works best.
A couple of weeks ago Lee Enterprise's daily paper in Missoula changed the publication day of its weekend section and started to distribute it as a free, stand-alone paper. In a publisher's note, Missoula Independent's Matt Gibson says the move is "a transparent attempt by the Missoulian to impede the growth" of his paper, and calls it unethical, anti-competitive and "probably illegal". He promises that Lee is "going to find themselves in a fight so fierce and unrelenting, they’ll wish they’d picked on somebody their own size."
The brother of a Philadelphia City Paper employee was twice barred from boarding a United Airlines flight for Phoenix recently. The reason apparently was his choice of reading material: the first time he carried Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey, which had a picture of explosives of the cover. The second time it was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Pittsburgh City Paper has hired at least five former In Pittsburgh employees since its parent company bought the rival alternative newsweekly last month. It is also looking at picking up some of the closed paper's regular contributors and syndicated material.
Amber Barton, head of the mailroom at Steel City Media, says weird mail coming to the Pittsburgh City Paper and its sister radio station is nothing new. After an anthrax scare last week, though, she handles the mail with latex gloves.
Pittsburgh City Paper and its sister radio station were under brief lockdown after radio host Jim Quinn received a suspicious letter. "We sat around, telling jokes we laughed a little too hard at," while a hazmat crew with disposable clothing searched the trash, Managing Editor Chris Potter writes.
