The Stranger's "Questionland" is like other web Q&A features like Yahoo Answers, but as publisher Tim Keck points out, the local focus of the Stranger's readership makes it even more valuable. "It's different from throwing a question out into the whole wide world," he tells VentureBeat. "You run into these people on the street, and they know each other."
Jeffrey Billman, who won first place for investigative reporting in the under-50,000 circulation category for his Orlando Weekly piece "Might Makes Right," will discuss the story with Weekly editor Bob Whitby in a conversation moderated by the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Tim Redmond. Like last week, the live chat will happen right here on AAN.org and will take place Friday at 3 pm EDT.
At the annual meeting of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies on Saturday, June 27, Willamette Week's Mark Zusman was elected the association's new president. He succeeds Metroland's Stephen Leon, who will take the advisory role of Immediate Past President. The membership voted on nine other board seats on Saturday, including two that were created just minutes earlier when AAN's bylaws were amended.
There will be up to ten board positions up for election at the annual meeting this Saturday in Tucson. So far, ten AAN members have thrown their hats into the ring for nine of the board spots; they tell us why they want to be on the board and what they think the most important issues facing the association are.
While last year's verdict in favor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian in its predatory pricing lawsuit against SF Weekly and Village Voice Media is being appealed, the Guardian claims VVM is ducking its debts and hiding its assets in an effort not to pay the $15.6 million it owes in damages. VVM executive editor Michael Lacey says that's not correct. "The case is on appeal. You are not entitled to a penny," he writes in a blog post.
Tim Gough talks to the design blog Grain Edit about how he balances his day job at the Weekly with his freelance illustration work, how he became interested in design and illustration, and his creative process. "I start off with a tiny, sloppy sketch and blow that up via computer or Xerox," he says. "I work off the original sketch for the most part, but clean it up and add some textures. I try to keep the looseness and energy of the original sketch."
In a round table discussion with representatives of other Seattle news organizations, Tim Keck discusses how The Stranger fits in to the transformation of the news business. He says that 2007 was the paper's best year ever, and '08 was slightly down due to the tanking economy. While he says that The Stranger has "probably three times the number" of online readers, he notes that print circulation hasn't dropped that much either. "The media compan[ies] that can navigate different mediums [are] going to be the ones that survive," Keck says. "The thing that really moors them is no longer the medium -- a print publication -- it's going to be the community and the brand."
Adamma Ince, who worked at the Voice for 12 years until she left last fall, will replace longtime PW editor Tim Whitaker. Whitaker had been the paper's editor since 1994, when it was known as Welcomat. At the Voice, Ince served as chief of research, associate editor, reporter, and, most recently, managing editor. "Adamma gained valuable experience and a special passion for editorial from The Village Voice in New York which can only lift PW to new heights in the fast changing world of print and electronic media," Anthony A. Clifton, the CEO of PW parent company Review Publishing, says in a release.
"The idea, of course, is that with no competition to siphon off advertisers or keep ad prices rock-bottom, one alt-weekly might accomplish what the Free Times and Scene couldn't: make enough money to survive," Scene managing editor Joe Tone says of the recently announced merger. "And it's hard to bemoan the consolidation. Had they not become one, the two papers would have eventually become none." However, Tone notes that, for now, Cleveland "will lose some journalists." In addition to former editor Pete Kotz, who has already left for Nashville, Tone says staff writer Lisa Rab and food critic Elaine Cicora have departed. Frank Lewis, who last week was named the new paper's editor, reports on the Free Times blog that the other managers have been named. Sean Misutka and Joe Strailey have been plucked from the Scene to be ad sales manager and classified sales manager, respectively. And three additional Free Times managers have found homes at the new paper: Steve Antol is the circulation manager; Tim Divis is the business manager, and Steve Miluch is the production manager.
