Two Bridgeport, Ct. police officers have been suspended following a complaint made by Fairfield County Weekly's Tom Gogola that they were drinking at a bar while on duty, according to the Connecticut Post. Gogola recalls the evening's events in a story that describes one cop joking, "I can't drink and drive ... I'm on duty," then later taking a bag of marijuana out of his pocket and telling the bartender: "We confiscated some weed ... I'll roll you a special cigarette. It'll make you feel better."
Tom Robbins is the second distinguished journalist to occupy the post at Hunter College, established to honor Newfield. Robbins, a former colleague of Newfield's at both the Voice and the Daily News, will teach a course entitled "Urban Investigative Reporting" and will also assist students in researching and writing a lengthy article or series of articles focused on an aspect of city life. "Whether tomorrow's journalists are writing online or on paper, we need more of them who understand and share Jack Newfield's passion for justice and the city he lived in," Robbins says in a press release.
Tom Gascoyne, who resigned from CN&R in March after 11 years with the paper, has a new biweekly publication called The Chico Beat. According to his column in the inaugural issue, the paper has an initial print run of 10,000 copies. "Here's how it happened. Two out-of-work journalists stumbled across a generous offer they couldn't refuse and the rest is history," Gascoyne writes. The other unemployed journalist is award-winning reporter Josh Indar, who also used to work for CN&R. Without mentioning his former employer by name, Gascoyne adds, "That paper, by the way, is a fine paper, has always been a fine paper and will continue to be a fine paper -- just different."
President Bush announced last week that he was appointing Karl Zinsmeister, editor of American Enterprise magazine, as the White House's new domestic policy adviser. Two days later, The New York Sun reported that Zinsmeister altered a 2004 profile of himself written by Justin Park for the Syracuse New Times and posted it on the American Enterprise Web site. Park's byline still appeared on the amended article, but several quotes from Zinsmeister had been softened, including one calling residents of Washington, D.C. "morally repugnant" and another criticizing the Bush Administration's conduct of the war in Iraq. In the Washington Post this morning, Zinsmeister admits he made the changes but claims he was merely correcting mistakes made by Park, even though he sent the New Times reporter a laudatory message after the profile was published. New Times Editor Molly English called Zinsmeister's conduct "reprehensible ... Once this is published, it's not his property. From that point in time, he can't just pick and choose," she told the Sun.
The staff of the St. Louis alt-weekly was unable to attend when the three-year old, River Front Times, made his debut March 18 at Fairmount Park. "If we'd been able to go, I'm convinced we would have cheered him on to victory," Editor Tom Finkel tells AAN News. "But we also probably would have bet the odds down and no one would have made any money." Former staff writer and racing aficionado Mike Seely convinced the horse's owner to change his name from Pollys Jaybird last year as long as the paper paid the $100 name-registration fee. The staff is planning to attend River Front Times' next race in full force. "As usual, the hopes of our company ride on a longshot," adds Andy Van de Voorde, executive associate editor for Village Voice Media.
Josh Kun's Feb. 15 cover story on Jorge Hank Rhon, the controversial mayor of Tijuana, was translated and reprinted by Proceso, a prominent Mexican newsmagazine. In addition, Mexico's largest newspaper, Reforma, printed a news item on the story. Rhon has been accused of ordering the assassination of a journalist who was investigating him -- his bodyguard was convicted of the murder -- so coverage of Rhon may carry a significant risk.
Tom Gascoyne is ending his 11-year tenure at CN&R, he announced in his regular column yesterday. Gascoyne jokes that he was "scooped" by the Chico Enterprise Record, which published a front-page story on his resignation. ("Talk about your slow news days," he says.) Gascoyne told AAN that he has "become sort of disenchanted with the game. While we try, as a wiser newspaper person once said, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, in the end it is the comfortable who buy all the advertising."
Leon speaks freely in a vitriolic interview with SFist, a blog that covered SF Weekly's termination of his regular "Infiltrator" column. Leon blames Editor Tom Walsh for the two misleading columns that got him in trouble and says, "Tom Walsh is the worst editor I've ever worked for. The reason I say this, an editor's job is to make a writer look good, not to make people question a writer's credibility." Nevertheless, Leon claims that he is "not bitter about the whole thing" because he "enjoyed working with John Mecklin" and is "happy with the body of work" he produced.
