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Read more about the article Nat Hentoff Celebrates 50 Years at the Village Voice

"Hentoff began writing a regular media and civil rights column for the Voice on January 8, 1958, and is still going strong," according to a press release. To celebrate, the paper is running two special features on the columnist. In the first, Allen Barra remembers when, in the midst of "a typical internecine squabble" in the late '80s, he took a cheap shot at Hentoff via a letter to the editor. Hentoff's response was to give Barra a Pee Wee Russell album with a note saying: "Listen to this. It might clear your head out." Barra writes: "Instead of jumping into the argument with pettiness and personal acrimony, he sought to create a dialogue with reason, tolerance, and jazz. What can you do with a guy like that?" In a companion feature, the Voice is running nearly 6,000 words of "Nat Hentoff's Greatest Hits," excerpts from half a century of columns.

Continue ReadingNat Hentoff Celebrates 50 Years at the Village Voice

Michael Bowen (The Pacific Northwest Inlander), Skylar Browning (Missoula Independent), Brendan Kiley (The Stranger), and Ashley Lindstrom (San Antonio Current) have been named fellows in the fourth National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater at USC's Annenberg School. The fellows will participate in a rigorous 10-day program in February with guest faculty including L.A. Weekly theater editor Steven Leigh Morris.

Continue ReadingFour Alt-Weekly Journalists Named NEA Fellows

Due to a 2004 change in the association's bylaws, five papers that have taken on new majority owners in the past two years will have their AAN membership reviewed in 2008. The Membership Committee will evaluate The Other Paper, Boston's Weekly Dig, East Bay Express, Metro Pulse, and Cityview, and will issue a report to members a week before the 2007 annual convention. To retain their membership, each paper must be affirmed by at least one-third of the members voting at the annual meeting in Philadelphia, which is tentatively scheduled for June 7.

Continue ReadingMembership of Five Papers Up for Review in 2008

Taking a page from New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia, who famously read comics on the radio during the city's 1945 newspaper strike, Olbermann last week read a two-page Tom Tomorrow cartoon from The Village Voice out loud on Countdown. The comic, "Bill O'Reilly's Very Useful Advice for Young People, as Channeled by Vile Left-Wing Smear Merchant Tom Tomorrow," features 16 helpful hints for the "young generation." As far as we know, this is the only time the first-ever recipient of AAN's Molly Ivins Award has had the opportunity to reference his own penis size on air.

Continue ReadingKeith Olbermann Channels Bill O’Reilly, via Tom Tomorrow

The Stranger editor and syndicated columnist's story about how he and his boyfriend became parents will get the Broadway treatment, The Village Voice's Michael Musto reports (see Web Extras at end of column). Musto hears that the adaptation of The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant will be directed by Scott Elliott. "That's one more reason to hope the stagehand strike ends," says Musto.

Continue ReadingDan Savage’s Book to be Turned Into a Musical

Earlier this month, 10-year-old interview tapes that Robbins still had derailed the trial of Lindley DeVecchio, a former FBI agent accused of helping the mob commit murder. With the dust now settled, he talks to the Brooklyn Paper about what it felt like to be on the other side of a news story. "A reporter has got no business being a part of a news story, but sometimes you get dragged in kicking and screaming and that’s what happened here. I had no idea that my tapes were going to be the knockout punch for this case," he says. "I didn't much like being a part of the story, but I didn't know any way out of it either."

Continue ReadingVillage Voice Reporter Tom Robbins Talks About Upending Mob Trial