Lisa Davis' "Fallout" series, which won a George Polk Award a few weeks ago, wins a 2002 IRE Award for investigative journalism. Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. honors Davis and John Mecklin of the SF Weekly for “Fallout,” which reveals "how a Bayfront property about to be turned over to the city by the Navy may be far more contaminated with radioactive waste than current cleanup plans acknowledge." Other AAN members Phoenix New Times and New Times Los Angeles were the two finalists in the local circulation weekly division, giving New Times a lock on the division.

Continue Reading“Fallout” Takes Another Award

In an article penned by Executive Editor Tim Redmond, the 35-year-old weekly announces that it has "launched the first stage of a legal offensive to stop" its New Times-owned competitor "from engaging in anticompetitive business practices that may violate federal and state (antitrust) laws." Redmond also details a settled lawsuit in which the Bay Guardian charged a sales rep who had decided to jump ship with secretly downloading over 1,000 pages of sales records and providing them to her then-new employer, SF Weekly.

Continue ReadingBay Guardian Challenges SF Weekly Over “Anticompetitive Practices”

The Strip and its publisher Brooks Cloud have broken away from Magnolia Media, a partnership that brought together Birmingham Weekly, the Creative Loafing chain, and The Strip of Tuscaloosa, Ala. Cloud moves back to Tuscaloosa, resigning as general manager and ad director of the Weekly. Cloud’s new company, Monkey Media, also published Tuscaloosa Business Ink. “The Strip really needed the attention of an on-site publisher,” Chuck Leishman, publisher of Birmingham Weekly, tells AAN News.

Continue ReadingThe Strip Breaks Away from Magnolia Media

Dodge Morgan, owner of the Casco Bay Weekly, has fired the alt-weekly's editor, deputy editor and both staff writers, the Portland Press Herald reports. Morgan tells the Press Herald the paper has been losing money for more than a year. He says the paper will keep printing despite the layoffs. When asked how, Morgan responds, "That's Lael's problem." Lael Morgan, his ex-wife, is the weekly's publisher.

Continue ReadingCasco Bay Weekly Fires Editorial Staff

"Finally, a newspaper war," writes Carlos Santos in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "Journalistic headbutting. A scramble for ads. Recruiting skirmishes. It's a grudge match to boot. Start the presses. Since earlier this month, two hip, breezy, irreverent, free weekly alternative newspapers have been locked in a bitter battle for advertising dollars and readers in a small market likely to sustain only one." In this corner, AAN-member C*Ville Weekly, and in the opposite corner, The Hook, launched by C*Ville's co-founder and former editor, Hawes Spencer.

Continue ReadingFired Editor Launches Rival Weekly

Lisa Davis joins writers from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker in winning a prestigious George Polk Award. Her two-part series, "Fallout", which won in the environmental reporting category, exposed mishandled radioactive waste at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard at Hunter's Point.

Continue ReadingSF Weekly Reporter Wins George Polk Award

Darrell Oldham, a co-founder of Seattle Weekly and one of AAN’s founders, passed away early Saturday morning after a battle with lung cancer. Oldham, who also spent a decade at the Seattle Times, was a beloved and respected mentor to many in alternative newsweekly and Seattle publishing circles.

Continue ReadingAAN Founder Victim of Lung Cancer

The bare-knuckled battle between Seattle Weekly and The Stranger in the land of Starbucks is laid bare by Seattle Post-Intelligencer writer John Marshall. He looks into whether two alt-weeklies can survive in a city the size of Seattle and whether the Stranger's "performance-art" journalistic style can knock out the more upscale, serious Weekly.

Continue ReadingAlt Wars in Seattle

Eugene Weekly is planning to publish by committee for the time being after letting go Publisher Sonja Snyder early this month. “We just had insurmountable differences as to the direction of the paper, and you can’t run a paper that way,” says Snyder, who helped found the weekly 19 years ago.

Continue ReadingExecutive Committee to Manage Eugene Weekly