The first president of the Czech Republic, who won Off-Broadway's highest honor for plays he wrote in 1968, 1970 and 1984, was feted this week at New York's Public Theater. "Havel was previously unable to collect his Obie Awards in person," says the Voice, "because, following the New York opening of (his 1968 prizewinner) The Memorandum, he returned to his home in Prague, where he was almost immediately placed under house arrest by the then Soviet-controlled government of Czechoslovakia." The Voice's chief theater critic and current Obie committee chairman, Michael Feingold, presented Havel with a special certificate attesting to the three awards.
Associate Editor Charles Mudede, who already has one film to his credit, wrote "Zoo," a feature-length documentary about, ahem, bestiality. Mudede tells the Seattle Times that he became fascinated by the notion that sex with animals was legal in the state of Washington until news reports circulated last year about a man who died from a ruptured colon after having sex with a horse. "Zoo" was bought by THINKFilm and is scheduled to premier at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
For 32 years, the Village Voice's annual music poll has "enjoyed an almost unchallenged run" as the gold standard of year-end Top 10 lists, says the New York Times. But the angst created by New Times' takeover of the paper, and the ensuing departure of music critic and poll organizer Robert Christgau, has emboldened a music blog to mount a challenge to Pazz and Jop's hegemony. After Christgau turned them down, Gawker Media's The Idolator hired former Seattle Weekly music editor Michaelangelo Matos to organize the competing poll, which "will largely be modeled after Pazz & Jop," according to the Times.
Alternative newsweeklies "don't usually fare very well in Chattanooga," says Editor Bill Colrus, but his paper seems to be bucking the trend. According to Colrus, The Pulse's improving finances have led to an expanded news section, which brings the alt-weekly closer to its goal to be like the papers "we loved in other cities" -- Nashville Scene, Creative Loafing and the New Haven Advocate. The Pulse applied for AAN membership in 2005 and 2006.
The AAN members collected honors in the 48th annual Katie Awards, handed out by the Press Club of Dallas to journalists and communications professionals in the Southwest. The Oklahoma Gazette landed laurels for Best Special Section and Best Writing Portfolio; The Fort Worth Weekly nabbed Best Series, Best Feature and Best Arts Feature; and the Dallas Observer was recognized for Best Humor and as the Best Major Market Special Interest Newspaper.
In its Sunday metro column "Reading New York," the New York Times plugs "Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11" (second item), co-authored by Village Voice veteran Wayne Barrett. Barrett teamed up with CBSNews.com Producer Dan Collins to take a hard look at the New York City mayor's performance before, during and after the terrorist attack. "Given all the hagiography that has been generated by the subject," writes Sam Roberts, “'Grand Illusion' is a welcome and overdue corrective, one that amplifies the gaps in preparedness, management and communications, and challenges the post-9/11 legend."
Three AAN members in the Buckeye State recently collaborated on election coverage so each could benefit from the others' insight into their "hometown" candidates. In profiles that were published in successive months in all three papers, Cincinnati CityBeat wrote about Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell (pictured); Cleveland Free Times examined Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown; and The Athens NEWS took a close look at Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland. CityBeat editor John Fox talks about how and why he and his fellow editors pooled their resources.
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