Erstwhile Observer Music Editor Zac Crain confirmed to his former employer: "Yes, I'm running, and I'm very excited. I'm not high, and it's not a joke." The current mayor of Dallas, Laura Miller, wrote a column for the Observer before launching her political career. The Observer describes Crain as a "great writer" and "nice guy" and jibes, "On balance, among former Observer staffers, Dallas could do worse for mayor -- not that we have anyone particularly in mind when we say that." Crain, now an associate editor at American Way magazine, plans to make an official announcement on April 24.
The Current kicks off its 20th anniversary year with a Jan. 18 retrospective of the paper's two decades, from breaking news about then-Mayor Henry Cisneros' adulterous affair, to the phallic cartoon that prompted businesses to ban the paper, to award-winning stories about media ownership. Journalist Steven G. Kellman writes of the newspaper culture in San Antonio: "Though the entire editorial staff of the Current is outnumbered by just the sports department at the Express-News, they keep the Hearst daily on its toes often by stepping on the toes of the powerful." The Current will auction framed digital prints of its most notable covers at four anniversary events over the course of the year.
U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay probably rues the day that Andrew Wheat first laid hands on a spreadsheet. Wheat's research at the liberal think tank Texans for Public Justice informs the political columns he writes for The Texas Observer. His award-winning columns followed the money corporations donated to a political action committee to places it perhaps ought not to have been going. This is the 18th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
On Monday, Moyers' remarks from a Sept. 30 party for the Observer were made available on The Huffington Post. Moyers covers highlights from the Observer's 50-year history as well as his own experiences in Texas. He then moves on to problems with the current administration, saying, "not a day passes that I don't wish we could clone The Texas Observer, plant it smack dab in the center of the nation's capital, and loose the spirit of Thomas Paine."
Utne magazine has announced the nominees for its 2004 Independent Press Awards, and Association of Alternative Newsweeklies member papers dominate the "Local/Regional Coverage" category. Austin Chronicle, Chicago Reader, The Stranger, The Texas Observer and Westword all received nominations, as did Los Angeles CityBeat, an upstart alt-weekly that's only been publishing for 16 months. Nominees were chosen from among 2,000 alternative media sources. According to the Utne Web site, selection depended partly upon which publications were "most apt to go missing from the Utne library."
Working from the notes of a fundraiser for Texans for a Republican Majority, Jake Bernstein and Dave Mann explore possible connections between campaign contributions and laws passed by the Texas Legislature. They scrutinize bills that allow line-of-credit home equity lending and increases in customers' gas bills. "The big lie of politics is that money doesn't influence legislation," they write in The Texas Observer, contending the matter was only made worse when legislative districts were redrawn along partisan lines.
