Rather than just deliver the same old reliable features and columns every week, editors of AAN papers look for ways to tweak their content, thus attracting new readers and re-engaging the faithful. But there's no sense rounding up a focus group to predict what new ingredients will work when freelancers, staff and the guy on the next barstool are all eager to give their advice. John Dicker interviews editors of four weeklies who messed with the mix to get happy results.
Following an industry trend, the Arizona alt-weekly went down to 25 inches wide, from 27. At the same time it rearranged sections and added more music coverage, editor Jimmy Boegle announces in a special anniversary issue. Although columnists will be allotted 150 to 200 fewer words, the theory that readers don't like longer articles is "full of crap," Boegle says, and word counts in most news and arts stories will remain the same. AAN associate member Katherine Topaz of Topaz Design did the redesign.
Cardinal Roger Mahony's three-point plan for handling some 500 claims of molestation by priests continues to exploit those seeking reparations, Jeffrey Anderson writes in L.A. Weekly. He describes how judges, trial lawyers and the media have deferred to the cardinal's desire for secrecy, and says Los Angeles "has become a beehive of intrigue at the expense of the collective psyche of already damaged victims of child rape."
There's no shortage of evidence that Mel Gibson has an anti-Semitic agenda in his film, "The Passion of the Christ," Stewart Sallo writes. The Boulder Weekly publisher says Jews historically have been most vulnerable to Christians' acts of "revenge" during the Holy Week before Easter, when passion plays were staged. Adolph Hitler praised one such performance in Germany as a convincing portrayal of "the menace of Jewry," Sallo writes. He raises concern about the potential of Gibson's film "to generate hatred and divisiveness."
Potential advertisers in alternative newsweeklies want to know not only how many people their promotions will reach but what types of people. How old? How educated? How rich? To supply answers, publishers of AAN papers rely on firms that do market comparisons and readership surveys. But, sometimes, research techniques don't quite deliver what publishers are looking for.
In December, Gov. Jeb Bush dedicated Lawtey Correctional Institute as the state's first "faith-based," government-run prison in the country, Jeffrey C. Billman reports for Orlando Weekly. "I can't think of a better place to reflect on the love of our Lord Jesus than to be here at Lawtey Correctional," said the Catholic governor. On a visit to the medium-security prison, Billman attends a revival, observes the temporary segregation of Muslim inmates and interviews some nervous, unhappy inmates.
U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski worked in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans during the year leading up to the war. The same week the U.S. invaded Iraq, she retired so she could speak openly about what she says she observed: "a neoconservative coup, a hijacking of the Pentagon." Kwiatkowski tells L.A. Weekly's Marc Cooper the search for weapons of mass destruction was a façade—"they didn't expect to find anything"—and offers three motives for the war that never became part of the Republican Administration's spin.
Posing as a heterosexual, Weekly Dig writer Lissa E. Harris infiltrated the crowd opposing acceptance of same-sex marriage outside the State House in Boston last week. A rosary recitation faltered when a man led a chant opposing homophobia. Anti-gay-marriage activists carried signs saying “Adam + Steve = 0 People. Adam + Eve = 6 Billion People.” Inside the State House, Harris writes, she "got confused by the labyrinthine corridors on the first floor and followed a gaggle of protestors from both sides who found momentary common ground as they searched for the stairs."
In cities on both coasts, the stimulant crystal methamphetamine has become the party/sex drug of choice among gay men. They call it "tina," Eric Snider reports in Weekly Planet (Tampa). "Tina is attractive because it provides long bursts of energy, a sense of euphoria and well being, and it can make you (along with anyone else who is doing it with you) horny as hell," Snider writes. The downside is that it has the power "to drop its users into a cycle of dependence and depravity, to keep them up for days on end, partying and engaging in extreme, often unprotected, sex." The drug is implicated in the spread of AIDS.
