Last week, the New York Press got rid of its newly minted sex columnist after it was revealed that Claudia Lonow took the questions for her first column from old "Savage Love" columns. But Savage tells the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he feels bad for Lonow, and that he thinks the "borrowing was an accident." In an interview with KING5-TV, the syndicated columnist and editor of The Stranger says that if Lonow would have just sourced the questions properly, there would've been no problem. "She just thought they were good hypotheticals and thought she could use them with impunity, and that's kinda not the way the media business works anymore," he says. Meanwhile, the Press is holding an open competition to become the paper's new sex columnist. Each week, the paper's editors will select one piece for publication, and those winners will become finalists in the quest. The new column will launch in the paper's 20th anniversary issue on April 23.

Continue ReadingDan Savage: Sex Column Flap ‘Doesn’t Rise to the Level of Plagiarism’

The paper and its crosstown rival the Seattle Weekly are giving competing explanations for the review's disappearance. The restaurant's co-owner tells the Weekly that The Stranger agreed to give him "a deal" on advertising and take the story off the website after he complained about the review when it ran in the Jan. 3 print edition. But Stranger publisher Tim Keck says the review wasn't fair, and a note on the Stranger's website says the review was taken down because the restaurant was visited within the first three months of its opening, which is against the paper's editorial policy. Keck tells the Weekly that the restaurant was given free ads, but it wasn't part of a deal to quiet the owner, but rather due to "production errors" in earlier ads the restaurant had run.

Continue ReadingWhy Did The Stranger Pull Negative Restaurant Review from Website?

Yesterday, the Press was proudly announcing its new sex column, "Lip Service" by Claudia Lonow. Today, editor David Blum says her first column will be her last, after it was revealed that some of the questions in the column were taken from Dan Savage's "Savage Love" columns. "It had been our understanding that the questions for her first column came from friends," Blum says. "She has told us she was unaware that using questions from Savage's column was a breach of journalism ethics. She has offered her resignation, and we've accepted it. We apologize to our readers, and to Dan Savage, for this error in judgment."

Continue ReadingNew York Press Fires New Sex Columnist for Stealing from Dan Savage

Ellen Forney has for several years been illustrating and interpreting the most interesting ad in The Stranger's "Lustlab" classified personals each week. Now they are collected in a new book, Lust: Kinky Online Personal Ads from Seattle's The Stranger, released this month by Fantagraphics. In addition to the illustrations, the book has interviews with some of the advertisers conducted by Forney, plus an introduction by syndicated sex columnist and Stranger editor Dan Savage.

Continue ReadingIllustrated ‘Lustlab’ Ads Collected in New Book

Texas Observer publisher Charlotte McCann will emcee this special ceremony honoring the late columnist and former Observer co-editor on the one-year anniversary of her death from breast cancer. The event will feature an interfaith ceremony, a number of speakers, and musical entertainment. In addition, the winner of "The Ballad of Molly Ivins" songwriting contest will be announced at the Jan. 31 event. Tickets are $10, and more information can be found at www.raisehellformollyivins.org.

Continue ReadingMolly Ivins One Year Memorial Scheduled for Jan. 31 in San Francisco

Late last week, the art blog Modern Art Notes raised questions about Christian Viveros-Faune's editorial independence, noting that he was involved in organizing two major commercial art fairs at the same time he was the Voice's art critic. The blog argued that he should either resign from the fairs, or the Voice should stop publishing him, and the flap lit up the blogosphere on Friday. On Saturday, Voice editor Tony Ortega explained to readers that, in light of "an appearance of conflict," Viveros-Faune would no longer be writing for the paper.

Continue ReadingAmidst Ethics Questions, The Village Voice Parts Ways With Critic

Portland's city auditor Gary Blackmer (pictured), angry about his treatment in a story in the Portland Mercury, approached reporter Matt Davis in City Hall, called him "despicable," and threw in a "fuck you" for good measure, according to the Mercury. Blackmer's beef comes down to the question of whether or not he provided comment for Davis' story on racial profiling by the city's cops. The story noted that Blackmer "declined to comment," yet he and a colleague both seem to think they provided enough comment by quoting from an earlier report. "To say [they] declined comment is fair, and I would challenge them to state publicly, here, why they did not," Davis writes. The Willamette Week's Ian Gillingham thinks that Blackmer's explosion was inspired by the newly released film The Bucket List, "in which two geezers start doing all the things they want to do before they die."

Continue ReadingPortland Official to Reporter: ‘I Think You’re Despicable’