Shane

"Newspapers, especially corporate-owned dailies, have become more feminine, and that is quite obvious in the pages of the local Gannett daily," Shane Goodman wrote in his Cityview editor's note last week. "As reporters spend more time writing about the hot colors of throw pillows and less time investigating crime at city hall, it creates opportunities for papers like this one." His comments have drawn a rebuke from the Des Moines Register's Rekha Basu, who says that "the lack of logic, research or intellectual honesty" in Goodman's note "are appalling." She adds: "But even more so are the sexist stereotypes that pour off a few short paragraphs of the city's so-called alternative paper."

After the news broke that Des Moines Register editorial cartoonist Brian Duffy was laid off as part of Gannett's nationwide cuts last week, Cityview editor/publisher Shane Goodman got in touch with Duffy and offered him a full page to publish whatever he wanted. Duffy took the alt-weekly up on the offer, and this week Cityview published his "farewell" editorial cartoon. "The Register lost an Iowa icon by dropping Duffy from their staff, and they are quickly finding that out ... the hard way," Goodman says in a note to readers.