When CVS took over Osco Drug in Milwaukee, the Shepherd Express was told to remove its news racks from the stores. Since then, free-lance journalist Jeff White has been standing vigil in protest outside one of the stores for about 20 hours a week. Last week, White and a man he was chatting with were arrested after a CVS manager called the cops to complain. Shepherd publisher Louis Fortis says he's called the company's headquarters to determine why they stopped carrying the paper, but hasn't received a response. But he says he's heard that a customer complained about the paper's criticism of President Bush and the Iraq War. "CVS has every right to not carry the Shepherd, but I don't believe that the top management at CVS would want to politicize their retail stores," Fortis says. "It would be a shame if CVS became a pharmacy that only catered to conservative Republicans."
Joel McNally has a new medium for the liberal views he regularly expresses in his Shepherd Express political column: He has been tapped to co-host the weekday morning show on WMCS-AM radio in Milwaukee. The Journal Sentinel describes WMCS as "focus[ing] on an African-American audience"; McNally, who is white, said, "We are in this thing together, and we are in this community together, and while the right-wing stations don't make it seem that way, black and white is the future of Milwaukee." The station manager told the newspaper that there may be "disparaging" callers "in the early going," but he hoped that new dialogue could result.
Catherine Nelson, associate publisher of AAN member Shepherd Express in Milwaukee, Wis., is scheduled to deliver a lecture titled "There Are Alternatives" at the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association convention next month. The PNA Web site describes Nelson, who was formerly publisher of two Pittsburgh alt-weeklies that went out of business, as "an industry guru on alternative papers." In addition to her position at Shepherd Express, Nelson presently serves as publisher of the new, daily-owned Core Weekly, which competes with AAN member Isthmus in Madison, Wis. (Scroll down the linked page to read about Nelson's lecture.)
