Steve Lowery, who reported as the new editor of Los Angeles CityBeat last Monday, resigned late last week. Publisher Charles Gerencser accepted his resignation today and named Rebecca Schoenkopf acting editor. "It's purely personal," Lowery tells LA Observed. "When I got there, it became immediately apparent that I just didn't have it in me ... my body and my soul were telling me, hey bud, maybe it's time." In an email to AAN News, Gerencser says Schoenkopf, who had just begun her tenure as the paper's arts editor last week, "is very passionate about creating a must-have; must-read newsweekly. I am looking forward to working with her on our effort to re-launch CityBeat with the June 12th edition." LA Observed is reporting the retooled paper will have "more of a magazine sensibility."
The paper's founding editor Steve Appleford has been replaced with alt-weekly veteran Steve Lowery, who'll begin his new gig Monday. Lowery comes to CityBeat from the District Weekly, where he was senior editor. He's also been a senior and interim editor at OC Weekly, and a staffer at New Times L.A. He'll reunite at CityBeat with former OC Weekly staffer and "Commie Girl" columnist Rebecca Schoenkopf, who has been named the paper's new arts editor.
Steve Perry, who left the paper earlier this year, tells the Minnesota Monitor that his new project is "a professional journalism site, but it's just as importantly conceived to be a community-and-conversations site." Though he won't reveal the site's name yet, it's set to launch in October or November. He says he's pulling inspiration from sites as diverse as The Stranger's, the Gothamist chain of city sites, and the Gawker Media sites. "I love the idea of building a forum that wantonly blurs the lines between 'professional' and 'amateur' voices wherever appropriate," Perry says. "After we started blogging extensively at City Pages, I was struck by how much I learned from the comments and correspondence it generated."
Britt Robson, who will leave March 1, tells the Star-Tribune his chief reasons for quitting were editor Steve Perry's recent resignation and the hiring of an editor from out of town to succeed him. "There was absolutely no pressure on me to leave," Robson says. "I just didn't want to be an unhappy, divisive force on the staff, which I would have been if I had stayed." He had spent over 10 years at the paper and was among Steve Perry's closest confidants, according to the Star-Tribune.
The Village Voice Media paper announced yesterday that Cleveland Scene managing editor Kevin Hoffman would replace Steve Perry, who resigned earlier this week. Former City Pages co-owner Tom Bartel (the brother of the paper's current publisher, Mark Bartel) tells the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he thinks Hoffman and present VVM management deserve a chance. "They've produced some terrific editors and stories over the years," Bartel says. "But anybody who comes in from out of town will have a certain learning curve. He needs to know the community he's covering."
Steve Perry announced today that he will resign next month after 13 years as editor of City Pages, reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. In a memo circulated to staff, Perry said "philosophical and practical differences" with New Times management prompted his decision to leave the paper.
A 15-year veteran of D.C.-based publications, Davolt (pictured) will be responsible for the content of AAN.org and AltWeeklies.com. He served as a writer and editor at the Washington Business Journal from 1999-2005, followed by a stint at Employee Benefit News. Davolt is eager to bring his diverse experience to bear on his new job. "Given the forces of darkness arrayed against the free press right now, this is an exciting time to support alternative newsweeklies," he says.
When the Minneapolis alt-weekly selected crystal meth as the "Best Cheap Thrill" in its annual "Best of the Twin Cities" issue, the usual suspects lined up to express their outrage, including talk-radio hosts, local TV reporters, health officials, politicians, and irate readers. Editor Steve Perry's first instinct was to stand by the blurb, explaining in an editor's note that it was a joke that was intended to make the point "that it's possible to make entirely too much of the drug hype of the hour--unless you're in radio or television, of course." But after being pounded for twelve hours, Perry issued an apology, saying that he was chastened by "a lot of comments and e-mails ... from readers who've seen the lives of loved ones wrecked or ended by meth."
When Steve Billings thought about what kind of food reviewer he wanted to be, he knew one thing. He didn't want to write dish-by-dish accounts of dining out. Instead, in his award-winning column for Metro Santa Cruz, he writes of the philosophy behind making sauerkraut, the goals of an organic farmer and other topical subjects. This is the 19th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
