Kirk MacDonald, who was also COO of Creative Loafing Inc., is leaving the company to rejoin the Denver Newspaper Agency, which controls the business operations of the Denver Post, as executive vice president for sales, marketing, and digital sales. MacDonald, who joined the Reader in September 2008, says CL CEO Ben Eason will take over the COO duties temporarily, and that a new publisher will be named for the Reader.
Boise Weekly and Omaha's The Reader each recently received $1,250 from AAN to pursue ambitious diversity-related projects as part of AAN's Diversity Grant program. Last fall, the Diversity Committee expanded the scope of the program to include diversity-related projects; the grants to Boise Weekly and The Reader mark the first to be awarded to projects rather than interns.
Reader media critic Michael Miner points out the striking similarity between a cover RedEye ran yesterday and one the Reader ran less than a month ago. But RedEye's editor claims no one from his paper ever saw the alt-weekly's April 9 issue. "As for the design, I had not seen that issue of The Reader, nor had my staff," Tran Ha says. "I mean, it was a story about parking meters - and some parking meters say 'fail' when they don't work."
AAN members are once again well-represented in the list of nominees for this year's James Beard Foundation Awards for Journalism. The finalists: L.A. Weekly's Pulitzer-prize winning critic Jonathan Gold in the Restaurant Reviews; Kristen Hinman of Riverfront Times in Newspaper Feature Writing Without Recipes; and the Chicago Reader's Mike Sula in Multimedia Food Journalism. Winners will be announced at a May 4 gala in New York.
Someone at the Reader office recently found an old manifesto written by the alt-weekly's founders in 1972, and the paper published it last week on its blog. Responding to the question "Why do we continue with this crazy project?," the manifesto reads: "1) We are convinced it will be successful eventually. 2) We really enjoy our work. 3) The paper seems to be fulfilling a definite need for 'alternative' publications which are nonetheless not 'radical.' 4) We are bringing exposure to some (potentially) great writers." MORE: "[The document is] a brash artifact of an era where, all across the country, small groups of news innovators took a flyer on an untested business model and editorial format," CJR's Clint Hendler writes. "And what they birthed, the alt-weekly, became the home to some of the country's best writers and best journalism."
Washington City Paper recently saved $8,000 by dropping all of its syndicated comics, the Chicago Reader's Michael Miner reports. City Paper still carries one local strip, "Dirtfarm," only because author Ben Claassen lets the paper run it for free. "City Paper feels like family to me," Claassen tells Miner by way of explanation. But Lynda Barry, who quit her "Ernie Pook's Comeek" strip, and her friend Matt Groening are feeling less familial these days about their former alt-weekly clients. Nevertheless, Groening keeps plugging away, creating "Life in Hell" every week even though his success with The Simpsons has left him financially secure. "I like sitting down once a week and knocking something out all by myself," says Groening. "The rest of my life is full of collaborators."
Ling Ma, a 2008 graduate of the Academy for Alternative Journalism, wrote this week's Chicago Reader cover story about the city's Museum of Holography and a controversial bank loan that may spell the museum's demise. The yearly academy trains young journalists in long-form feature writing with the aim of recruiting them into the alternative press. MORE: Read Ma's blog about reporting the story here.
The hearing scheduled yesterday was set to decide whether CL's creditors can declare their loans in default and take immediate possession of the company from CEO Ben Eason. According to Wayne Garcia, the hearing has been continued until March 11. Garcia says both sides in the case complained about the delay but worked together to develop a new timeline.
Washington's only alt-weekly is putting on a full-court press as the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama draws closer. The City Paper released a 120-page special inauguration issue this week that also featured "The Obama Reader," a 16-page insert from sister paper the Chicago Reader, which has been covering Obama since 1995. (The insert was also published in the Windy City.) Publisher Amy Austin says City Paper will be doing extensive online reporting over the next several days on its inauguration aggregation page. AAN members who want a web icon to link to the ongoing inaugural coverage should email Austin at aaustin (at) washingtoncitypaper.com.
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