Donald Bren, a developer and GOP stalwart in Southern California, is on both Forbes' list of wealthiest Americans and OC Weekly's list of "scariest" Orange Countians. Despite OC Weekly's frequent exposes of Bren's “shenanigans,” his company was a regular advertiser until a few weeks ago, when it yanked ads worth about $120,000 a year. "Our crime? We’d forgotten to adhere to Bren’s prime directive: thou shalt not publicly discuss the actions of my wandering penis," R. Scott Moxley writes.

Continue ReadingAngry Billionaire Pulls $120,000 in OC Weekly Ads

Spokane, Wash., City Councilman Steve Eugster has dropped a libel suit against The Local Planet Weekly's parent company. He claimed the Local Planet defamed him in a column that suggested he followed no law but his own and depicted him with a pitchfork and horns.

Continue ReadingCouncil Member Drops Libel Suit

Steven Emerson, who promotes himself as an investigative reporter with special knowledge of radical Islamic terrorists, has abandoned his four-year-old libel suit against the Weekly Planet and former Editor John Sugg. In a 1998 article, Sugg, now a senior editor at Creative Loafing (Atlanta), questioned Emerson's assertions about terrorist plots against him. Emerson sued, saying the articles defamed him. "Emerson never had a case," Planet Publisher Ben Eason says.

Continue ReadingTerrorism “Expert” Drops Case Against Weekly Planet

Tom Grant, editor of the Local Planet Weekly, announces that he's leaving his job and running for mayor of Spokane, Wash. Grant has been a journalist for 23 years, primarily as an investigative television reporter. His reporting helped free more than a dozen innocent people from jail in the mid-1990s, and he recently helped uncover a secret deal in Spokane by which millions in taxpayer dollars were being diverted to the richest family in town. He has been with The Local Planet for two years.

Continue ReadingLocal Planet Editor Runs for Mayor of Spokane

Sara Catania, staff writer at LA Weekly, is one of 12 journalists awarded John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford University for the 2003-04 academic year. During their stay at Stanford, the Knight Fellows design independent courses of study and participate in special seminars. Catania will pursue her interests in mental illness and criminal law.

Continue ReadingLA Weekly Writer Heading to Stanford

Howard Blume says no "upstart" among the "lower-budget alternatives" springing up in the LA Basin will challenge LA Weekly citywide. The paper has fired Valley Business Printers, owner of its newest competitor, Southland Publishing Co., Blume reports. Southland purchased the assets of the closed New Times LA, plans a summer launch of weeklies in L.A. and the Valley, and has hired Editorial Art Director Dana Collins away from LA Weekly. Plus former LA Weekly Publisher Michael Sigman is consulting with Southland, Blume writes.

Continue ReadingLA Weekly Dissects Competitors

Eric Benjamin, a 20-year alternative newsweekly veteran, becomes associate publisher of Gambit Weekly. The Boston native played a significant role in the growth of the alternative newsweekly industry as board president and founding board member of Alternative Weekly Network, which represents more than 120 alternative newsweeklies nationwide. He comes to Gambit directly from New Mass Media, where he was national sales director.

Continue ReadingBenjamin Joins Gambit Weekly

Cartoonist Ted Rall, whose work appears in several AAN papers, and Katy Reckdahl, a frequent contributor to Gambit Weekly, are among the five winners of the 2002 James Aronson Awards for Social Justice Journalism. The judges say that Rall's "Cartooning with a Conscience" has "increasingly grown irreverent, cutting and iconoclastic, almost at times seeming to eschew humor in favor of mordant portraiture." Reckdahl was recognized for her work on the homeless of New Orleans. "Reckdahl's work challenges the stereotype that the homeless create their own situation because they are criminals, substance abusers or mentally ill," the judges wrote.

Continue ReadingRall, Reckdahl Honored