The outgoing editor, Jim Harper, told the St. Petersburg Times that Weekly Planet president and CEO Ben Eason "wants a different kind of editor" and is conducting a nationwide search. Harper will retain his post during the hunt for his replacement. He has been the Planet's editor for 15 months. Before that, he worked for more than 20 years at the Times.
The Houston Chronicle obtains only brief comments from Tim Fleck, the 57-year-old author of the weekly column The Insider, and Houston Press Editor Margaret Downing, about the circumstances of the departure. Others assess the impact of Fleck's acerbic political coverage. In his last column for the Press, Fleck writes about Congressional candidate Lloyd "Ted" Poe, known for the shame sentences he handed out as district judge, and the time Poe underwent his own moment of shame.
The Wall Street Journal wasn't so interested in coverage of poverty and urban issues, or critical analyses of people in power. So in 1968 Roldo Bartimole left that paper and devoted the next 35 years to writing for alternative publications, living on the modest pay that comes with that pursuit. For 10 years he wrote a column for the Cleveland Free Times, leaving when Village Voice Media shut down the since-revived paper in 2002. He also wrote for the Cleveland Edition in the 1980s and, most recently, for an African-American weekly, City News. Now 70, Roldo is giving up his one-man newsletter, "Point of View," to retire. New York Times reporter Walter Bogdanich tells E&P that even the targets of Bartimole's barbs had to admire his courage in following through on his beliefs.
Veteran reporter Savannah Blackwell is among those whose jobs were eliminated. Several other workers had their hours cut. Executive Editor Tim Redmond blames the downsizing on "a brutal economy that the president isn't making any better and a very difficult national ad sales environment." REDMOND TELLS AAN: "The Chronicle and E&P stories weren't accurate; the number of layoffs was fewer than six."
Robert Meyerowitz will find average temperatures 60 degrees warmer when he leaves Alaska in January to become editor of Honolulu Weekly. "In the five years that Meyerowitz has been editor, the Press has largely forsaken potty mouth to produce thoughtful and provocative journalism that you didn't have to agree with to admire," writes Rosanne Pagano in the Anchorage Daily News. Pagano, a journalism professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, praises the Press (which is not an AAN member) for its wide range of stories, including a probe of a for-profit business that managed rural school districts.
After working at the paper for over a decade and filling in as interim editor on three separate occasions, the veteran Admissions Committee member is named to replace John Yewell. There are two Ben Fultons, says Publisher John Saltas: The one who "has a special rapport with budding writers and the respect of veteran wordsmiths," and the "worry-wort" who "is consumed with the curse of being only nearly perfect."
Two days after reporting that "the paper's freelance writers heaved a sigh of relief" when Salt Lake City Weekly Editor John Yewell was fired, Elaine Jarvik of Deseret News is back to report that her earlier story "prompted other free-lancers to weigh in with praise for their former editor as thorough, honest and hard-hitting." Despite the dueling free-lancers, staff members at City Weekly still chose to remain silent for the record.
