Newspapers in the Phoenix-based alt-weekly chain picked up seven of the 11 awards handed out last month in the under 150,000 circulation category of the National Association of Black Journalists' annual contest. Dallas Observer's Jim Schutze and Julie Lyons, Cleveland Scene's Thomas Francis and Riverfront Times' Jeannette Batz all were named first-place winners.

Continue ReadingNew Times Dominates NABJ Awards

The Alternative Weekly Network announces six new members, including the Times Shamrock Alternative Newsweekly Group's four alt-weeklies, which moved over from the Ruxton Group. Three of the papers -- San Antonio Current, Detroit's Metro Times and Orlando Weekly (all except Baltimore City Paper) -- were former AWN members that shifted to Ruxton when their parent company, Alternative Media, Inc., was purchased by Times Shamrock in 1999. "They’re back now…and we could not be more pleased," AWN says in its September newsletter.

Continue ReadingTimes Shamrock Papers Move to AWN

Editor Pete Kotz says the two ad department employees had been out drinking and were just "trash-talking over the phone." Cleveland Free Times Editor David Eden claims they threatened to murder a Free Times employee and rape his wife. Whatever it was, it's now in the courts. Adam Simon and Brian LeBlanc face charges of aggravated menacing, telecommunications harassment and making threats over the telephone, The Plain Dealer reports.

Continue ReadingTwo Cleveland Scene Employees Charged With Threatening Competitor

The Association for Women in Communications grants Martin Kuz of Cleveland Scene a Clarion Award for his story, "The Wal-Mart Menace" in the Newspaper Hard News Story category. Geri Dreiling of Riverfront Times also picks up a Clarion Award in the Newspaper Feature Story category for "Nasty Boys."

Continue ReadingNew Times Papers Win Two Clarion Awards

James E. Dible becomes the first non- member of the Mead family to head the Erie, Pa., publishing company that owns majority stakes in AAN-members Cleveland Free Times and the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO), as well as the daily Erie Times-News, Editor & Publisher reports. Dible, 60, helped start Cyberlink, an Internet company, and the paper's GoErie.com Web site. He replaces Michael Mead, 65, who is retiring.

Continue ReadingNew CEO at Times Publishing Co.

The Detroit Free Press looks at the brawl between AAN-member Metro Times and upstart Real Detroit Weekly. In this corner, Metro Times -- 20 years old and sophisticated, laden with narrative journalism, investigative stories, in-depth arts and music criticism, a paper for "people who read without moving their lips," Editor Jeremy Voas tells the daily. In the other, the challenger Real Detroit -- "all style and flash and talking trash," and unabashedly giving advertisers favorable coverage. Readers -- and advertisers -- will determine the winner, but Real Detroit has carved out a niche that's giving it about half the readership of the dominant Times, freelancer Christopher Walton reports.

Continue ReadingNewsweekly War in Detroit

Skip Oliva, president of the nonprofit organization Citizens for Voluntary Trade, filed a motion Tuesday with a federal court in Ohio to intervene in the Justice Department's antitrust case against Village Voice Media and NT Media. If granted intervention, Oliva says he will appeal the decision approving a government-mandated settlement in the closure of papers in Cleveland and Los Angeles. Oliva's 15-page brief to the U.S. District Court in Cleveland details numerous allegations of misconduct and unconstitutional abuse of prosecutorial power by Justice.

Continue ReadingLibertarian Group Seeks to Intervene in VVM/NT Antitrust Case

Dallas Observer won two first place awards in the 2003 Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards, and The Village Voice and Phoenix New Times each took one. East Bay Express won second place in the General Excellence category for papers with circulations 50,001 to 100,000, and New Times papers were finalists in nine other categories.

Continue ReadingAAN Papers Take Four Firsts in Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards