Mayor Frank Melton and two of his bodyguards have been indicted by a federal grand jury for demolishing an alleged "drug house" in Aug. 2006, a story first reported by the Jackson Free Press in Sept. 2006. "The three men were charged in connection with a conspiracy to tear down a private home in Jackson and thereby violate the civil rights of the owner and resident of that home," a Department of Justice press release reads. They are also charged with using a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence. Melton, who is running for a second term, tells the Clarion-Ledger that he's "very disappointed, because I have worked so hard on fighting crime in this city."
Alt-weeklies fairly dominated the newspaper divisions of the 2008 Lone Star Awards, the Texas-wide journalism contest sponsored by the Houston Press Club. In the over-100,000 circulation division, the Houston Press and Dallas Observer combined to take first, second and third places in the "Print Journalist of the Year" competition. The Observer won a total of five awards, while the Press took home more firsts (nine) and more awards overall than any other paper in the division. The Press finished first in these categories: Print Journalist of the Year, Photojournalist of the Year, Public Service, Business Story, General Commentary/Criticism, Feature Story (Internet-based), Opinion (Internet-based), Sports Photo, and Photo Package. In the under-100,000 newspaper division, the Fort Worth Weekly brought home more hardware than any other paper. That included five first-place trophies, in these categories: Feature Story, Investigative Reporting, Politics/Government, Business Story, and Student News. The awards were presented on June 6.
This year the high school in Charleston, Miss., held an integrated prom for the first time -- ending a system of parallel parties for black and white students. National Public Radio's Bryant Park Project covered the story after reading about it in the Jackson Free Press. "After we covered the story this week, a whole lot of people wrote in to say they were just plain shocked that any kind of segregation could still exist in this country," writes the show's web editor (and former Village Voice executive editor) Laura Conaway. She talks to Ladd about the story, the reaction, and where the conversation about race in America needs to go.
Todd Spivak is a finalist in the small newspapers category for his examination of shady rare-coin companies that were targeting elderly investors. The Loebs, which will be awarded on June 30 in New York, are "the highest honors in business journalism."
"The New York Press' early years involved a lot of tough slogging, making pitches to recalcitrant advertisers (most of whom are out of business today), attracting writers for minimal fees and continually missing the deadline for our printer in the Meatpacking District," writes founder Russ Smith. "But mostly, we had a lot of fun." He talks about the history of the paper, the future of alt-weeklies, and how his conservative political commentary often got the paper -- which also ran pieces by liberal stalwarts Alexander Cockburn and David Corn -- mislabeled as a "Republican paper." As part of the cover package, the Press also published a timeline of notable events in the paper's history.
AAN members took home a fair share of the honors last week in the First Amendment Awards competition sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists' Fort Worth pro chapter, winning a combined three first places among eight print categories in the Texas-Oklahoma contest. Fort Worth Weekly took first place in the Reporting on Open Government and student categories, while the Houston Press finished first in the Defending the Disadvantaged category. The Weekly also won an additional second-place award, and the Press took one more second- and third-place finish.
Back in 1982, Press editor David Blum -- who was then a Wall Street Journal reporter -- was part of a team that published the one-off satire Off the Wall Street Journal, and now he and the Press have published the sequel: My Wall Street Journal, which is published "in honor of Rupert Murdoch's ever-expanding media empire." The project brings Murdoch's tabloid sensibilities to the legendary paper, with results like a full-page spread of a bare-breasted Ann Coulter; a gossip section entitled "Page Sex;" and headlines such as "Cleaning Lady Sees Virgin in Merrill-Lynch Q4 Loss." The team also produced a fake YouTube video of Murdoch reacting to My Wall Street Journal. Read more from the New York Times and Editor & Publisher.
AAN members were well-represented when the winners of the association's 2007 Better Newspaper Contest were announced this weekend. Syracuse New Times took home a total of nine awards, including first-place finishes in Best Advertising Campaign, Best House Ad/Ad Campaign, Graphic Illustration, Sports Feature, and Sports Feature Photo. Metroland won a total of seven awards, and staff writer David King was named 2007 Writer of the Year. Judges called King "a powerful writer, a master storyteller, and a thorough researcher whose convincing style grabs the reader and holds on tight -- navigating difficult subject matter, taking us to places we've never been, enabling us to understand things we never could." The New York Press came away with six awards, including first-place finishes in Best Front Page and Feature Story. The Ithaca Times took home four awards.
AAN members are once again well-represented in the list of finalists for this year's James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards. Robb Walsh of the Houston Press and SF Weekly's Eliza Strickland are both nominated in the Newspaper Feature Writing About Restaurants and/or Chefs category, while Westword's Jason Sheehan is nominated in the Restaurant Reviews category. Winners will be announced June 8 at a reception in New York. The awards recognize and honor excellence and achievement in the culinary arts.
In this year's installment of the Education Writers Association's journalism contest, Rob Jordan of the Miami New Times and April Jimenez of the Long Island Press both received first-place awards in the Feature, News Feature, or Issue Package category in different circulation divisions (Jordan in under 100,000; Jimenez in over 100,000). In addition, Westword's Luke Turf took home a special citation award in the same category for papers with a circulation under 100,000.
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