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Read more about the article Gambit Remembers Susan Crichton Martineau

In a fitting tribute, the paper dedicates the Best of New Orleans issue to its former ad director, who succumbed to cancer earlier this week. “Sue represented the best of Gambit,” says publisher Margo DuBos. “In a lifetime, you can only hope to know someone as wonderful as Sue.” News & Reviews’ Jeff von Kaenel, who worked with Crichton to organize AWN, says, “Putting it together was complicated because getting alternative newspaper publishers to work together is like herding cats. And Sue was one of the few people I met who could herd cats.”

Continue ReadingGambit Remembers Susan Crichton Martineau
Read more about the article New Weekly Goes After Gannett on its Own Turf

Steve May and his wife Cherry Fisher May are picking a fight where other publishers might fear to tread, readying themselves for head- to-head competition with Gannett. Beginning this Friday, they will begin publishing an alternative newsweekly in Lafayette, La., where Gannett owns both the daily newspaper, The Daily Advertiser, and its 23-year-old weekly, The Times of Acadiana. The Mays used to own The Times, and their anger over what it has become is fueling their launch of a paper they have pointedly named The Independent. "Gannett has destroyed The Times," Steve May says. "These guys are Sears managers who have a one- size-fits-all approach to local publishing."

Continue ReadingNew Weekly Goes After Gannett on its Own Turf

Marc Schultz was grilled by FBI agents acting on a tip from someone who saw the dark, bearded freelance writer reading something "suspicious" in a coffee shop: After retracing his steps, Schultz remembered what he had been reading: a printout of an article from Weekly Planet (Tampa) -- Hal Crowther's "Weapons of Mass Stupidity." "(I)t seems like a dark day when an American citizen regards reading as a threat, and downright pitch-black when the federal government agrees," Schultz writes.

Continue ReadingFBI Questions Man Seen Reading Alt-Weekly Article

A subsidiary of the Erie, Pa. company, formed in March to invest in alternative newspapers and headed by Art Howe, acquires Louisville's alt-weekly only months after its purchase of Cleveland Free Times. Pam Brooks, a longtime Louisville resident and publishing executive, is the new publisher, replacing Blanche Kitchen Brewer, who is retiring. "It was time," explains LEO Executive Editor and co-founder John Yarmuth. "My concern is the best interest of this paper, and it supersedes all personal agendas."

Continue ReadingTimes Publishing Buys LEO

Executive Editor John Yarmuth confirms to a LEO columnist that an acquisition of the Louisville, Ky., alternative is being discussed. Writer Tom Peterson says LEO’s suitors reportedly have an affection — rather than a formula — for operating alternative weeklies. "But as LEO staffers await news, the questions and the uncertainty fly, wafting through the offices, leaking from behind closed office doors and in the wake of hushed conversations," he writes. "Will it happen, and if it does, what will be different?"

Continue ReadingSuitor Woos LEO

Judicial Watch, which buried Bill and Hillary Clinton in legal papers, has subpoenaed OC Weekly writer Gustavo Arellano for all the photographs he shot of a fight that broke out at an anti-immigrant rally in Anaheim, Calif., in December 2001. Judicial Watch represents the anti-immigrant group California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which claims the city of Anaheim didn't protect CCIR members when a melee broke out with counter-protesters. OC Weekly publishes the photographs in question, and it seems they may actually hurt CCIR's case.

Continue ReadingRight-Wing Group Subpoenas OC Weekly Photographs