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.
As we announced on Monday, AAN's longtime executive director, Richard Karpel, is stepping down to take the same position at the American Society of News Editors. AAN has placed ads to find his successor on four websites and has received more than 20 applications thus far. The Executive Committee of the Board of Directors will do an initial screening of the candidates later this month; after this is complete, President Mark Zusman will appoint a separate committee that will likely meet and interview the finalists and make a recommendation to the Board of Directors.
Richard Karpel, who joined the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies as its executive director in July 1995, is leaving AAN for the same position at the American Society of News Editors. His last day will be Nov. 25, although he has agreed to help the association in an unofficial capacity after that date to assist in the transition to a new staff chief executive. "I have been at AAN for the better part of my adult life, and it has been an incredible ride," he says. "I want to thank all of the AAN members past and present who have made my time here such a rich and rewarding experience." MORE: Here's ASNE's announcement.
That's what the Yale Daily News finds in a report on how three local news organizations are faring in the downturn. While the Advocate's "circulation is steady," as managing editor John Stoehr points out, publisher Joshua Mamis admits that the paper's page count has decreased. Mamis also notes that although the paper has lost some national advertisers, many local advertisers have remained loyal.
A few days after Byrd and Melanie Billings were murdered in their Florida home in early July, Independent News publisher Rick Outzen ran an exclusive on his blog disputing the state attorney's version of events and suggesting the murders may have been a contract killing. Despite the story being disputed by competing news outlets and other individuals, the local sheriff is now investigating the claim, saying that many of Outzen's sources have been correct. Outzen, whose Pensacola weekly has applied for AAN membership a few times and is a familiar face at AAN conventions, tells the New York Times that he feels vindicated, and his work has led to an assignment from The Daily Beast and praise from local officials. "I don't always agree with him, but he is the conscience of the community," the chairman of the Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce says. "People have come to trust that Rick's going to be out there, pushing us in ways sometimes we're not comfortable with."
In his announcement yesterday about starting his own weekly internet TV show, the independent U.S. Senator from Vermont bemoaned media consolidation. Unfortunately, he also unfairly characterized alt-weeklies, claiming they "have been bought by a monopoly franchise and made a predictable shift to the right in their coverage of local news." In a letter responding to the Senator's claim, AAN president Mark Zusman and executive director Richard Karpel set the record straight, noting the absurdity of calling any alt-weekly a "monopoly franchise" and stating that "alternative newspapers across North America are still often among the few publications in their communities that consistently offer a progressive viewpoint on issues like poverty, racism, health-care reform and environmental sustainability."
The Portland, Ore., alt-weekly was the latest to announce company-wide salary reductions yesterday. Effective March 16, staff pay will be reduced by 8 percent, while owners Mark Zusman and Richard Meeker will reduce their own pay by 25 percent. The move was made to keep the paper profitable for the balance of 2009. At the same meeting, Meeker, who is WW's publisher, announced that this week's paper was the largest since November and that ad sales for the spring appear ahead of budget.
Publisher Richard Meeker reports that 3,902 people made 8,419 donations totaling $806,581.81 to WW's 2008 Give!Guide, an annual program that supports local nonprofits and encourages the philanthropic impulse among readers 35 and under. When combined with the $4,000 in prizes from WW and $16,000 in prize money from a local research and consulting firm, the total raised this year for 55 Portland-area nonprofits was $826,581.81. Meeker says that's a 60 percent increase over last year and almost 40 times what the Give!Guide raised when it debuted four years ago.
In a letter published in this week's New Yorker, Richard Karpel tells the magazine that Louis Menand was bizarrely off the mark when he claimed in his recent story on The Village Voice that "after 1970, the alternative press died out" when "mainstream publications moved into the field." Karpel writes: "The progenitors of the alternative press ... were founded by trailblazers so far out of the mainstream that forty years later even a scrupulous publication like The New Yorker seems to have forgotten that they exist," MORE: Texas Observer managing editor Brad Tyer weighs in on Menand's piece on his blog.
For the past five years, as part of its annual Give!Guide, which this year features 55 worthy Portland nonprofits, the paper has honored young nonprofit leaders with the Skidmore Prize. At a ceremony last week, the four recipients (Katy Kolker, Amy Harwood, Rodolfo Serna and Polly Bangs) each got a plaque and a check for $4,000 from WW publisher Richard Meeker and Multnomah County Commissioner Ted Wheeler. Read more about the honorees and their work here.
