Seattle Weekly reported Monday that the federal government will not intervene in the merger of its parent company, Village Voice Media, and New Times Media, LLC. The Federal Trade Commission posted a routine notice last Wednesday listing the merger among proposed deals that neither the FTC's Bureau of Competition nor the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice would challenge. Thus, the Weekly said, the way is clear "for the two companies to become one as soon as paperwork is complete." The Weekly also quoted an e-mail message to staff from Village Voice Media CEO David Schneiderman, in which he said, "the work on integrating the two companies will accelerate, but we will still be functioning as separate entities until the closing." The Village Voice ran its own story later in the day.

Continue ReadingFTC Won’t Block New Times-Village Voice Merger

Celeste Fraser Delgado was arrested on Nov. 20, 2003 while covering protests during the Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial meetings in downtown Miami. On Thursday--the two-year anniversary of the event--the ACLU filed three lawsuits, including one on Delgado's behalf, charging that police officers had used excessive force to intimidate and unlawfully arrest innocent bystanders and protesters. Delgado, who wrote a 2700-word article about her experience, is no longer with Miami New Times.

Continue ReadingACLU Files Lawsuit on Behalf of Miami New Times Reporter

The Nov. 16 issue of the Press contains a letter from its editors drolly scolding the editors of the Times. Apparently, a Nov. 6 article in the Times referenced the Press's endorsement of a mayoral candidate but missed the joke. The Press editors note, "Maybe The New York Times sees nothing suspicious or even funny when an alternative weekly writes, 'We're honored to add our name to this list [of endorsements], and offer the all-important escort-seeking demographic.'"

Continue ReadingNew York Times Misses Satire in New York Press Endorsement

A young man was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, and a forensic psychologist who worked on the case didn't believe the teenager had done it. So he turned to Ann Mullen, then a writer at Detroit's Metro Times. She dug around and wrote an in-depth story on the flaws in the Detroit Police Department's investigation. Six months later, the young man was freed. This is the 13th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.

Continue ReadingAnn Mullen: Righting a Wrongful Conviction