Back in March 2006, City Paper staff writer Huan Hsu reported on the lack of racial diversity in the paper's newsroom: "It's not all that surprising that the Washingtonian is a really white magazine. It would seem a much bigger problem for the City Paper, which purports to write about a predominately black city, yet is produced by a bunch of young white folks who live in Northwest D.C." Current staffer Andrew Beaujon revisits the piece and reports that the paper has not only gotten smaller, but it has gotten whiter as well. "Our full-time editorial staff then: 22, all but two of whom were white," he writes. "Our full-time edit staff now: 10, all of whom are white."

Continue ReadingWashington City Paper’s Edit Staff: Smaller and Whiter than in ’06

AAN's executive director and Washington City Paper's editor joined the Project for Excellence in Journalism's Mark Jurkowitz and former Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff on a D.C. public-radio show yesterday for a wide-ranging discussion about how the digital transformation, changing demographics and the recession are affecting alternative media.

Continue ReadingRichard Karpel, Erik Wemple Talk About Alt-Media’s ‘Economic Woes’

The paper will relocate its offices over the Thanksgiving holiday to the Metropolitan Arts building in downtown Dayton, "putting the City Paper in the middle of the scene it covers," Dayton Business Journal reports.

Continue ReadingDayton City Paper Moving Offices

Washington City Paper editor Erik Wemple will discuss his award-winning media reporting with Tucson Weekly editor Jimmy Boegle on AAN.org this Friday, Oct. 30. Wemple took home first place for "One Mission, Two Newsrooms," his examination of the divide between the digital and print staffs at the Washington Post. Friday's chat will begin at 3 pm EDT.

Continue ReadingNext ‘How I Got That Story’ Live Chat: Friday Afternoon

This week's release of Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson's report "The Reconstruction of American Journalism" has the journalism world buzzing. "The report takes a particular interest in local accountability and enterprise reporting," Washington City Paper editor Erik Wemple notes, "which is the commodity most at stake as newspapers pare down their editorial staffs." After searching the report for any mention of the alt-weekly's role in journalism's future and finding none, Wemple says he understands. "After all, alt-weeklies ... only channel all of their editorial resources toward local reporting; only conduct long-form investigations of key local agencies and authorities all the time; only monitor city halls like no one's business; only do all kinds of arts reporting that no other outlets care to do; and have been at it only for about half a century now," he writes. "Why mention those news organizations?"

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Editor Asks Downie and Schudson: What About Us?