San Francisco Bay Guardian executive editor Tim Redmond writes that while he thought Eli Sanders' recent story on the feud between the Guardian and SF Weekly in The Stranger was mostly right, he faults Sanders (and others) for casting the legal battle as a clash of egos. "The thing is, Bruce [Brugmann] and Mike [Lacey] haven't hated each other for decades," Redmond writes. "They weren't terribly close, but they got along fine -- and sometimes, they were political allies." He points to their unlikely alliance at the 1997 AAN Convention (three years after New Times purchased SF Weekly) to push a bylaws measure (and digs up a photo of the two arm-in-arm) as proof. "They were almost, sorta, kinda pals," he writes. "At least for a few minutes."
Seattle Weekly columnist and former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan says he has landed a book deal with Touchstone, a division of Simon and Schuster, who will publish the book in Fall 2011. "I want to thank the readers of my column for really pushing me to write this book," he writes. "The Weekly staff have also been invaluable to me -- certain editors here have made a big difference as far as what they expect from me. That too makes for a better product." He explains that the book won't be a "GN'R tell-all" or a typical rock 'n' roll book. "There are a lot of those at this point," McKagan writes. "Sure, I will touch on all of that, as it is part of my story, but only just a part of it."
The AAN Diversity Grant Program, which was instituted in 2001 to help papers add diversity to their newsrooms and to encourage minority journalists to start their careers at alt-weeklies, is accepting new applications. The program offers AAN papers the opportunity to apply for a grant for a diversity-related project or for an intern. The Diversity Committee will award up to four grants of $1,250 each per year; the deadline for applications is April 23. Recent awardee Boise Weekly tells AAN News that the "global culture blog" for the local refugee community it launched with the grant money "would have never happened" without the Diversity Grant. Now that the blog has become a success, the Weekly will keep it going with its own funding. (For all the details, download an application here.)
Finalists for the third annual Los Angeles Press Club National Entertainment Journalism Awards were announced this week. L.A. Weekly received five nominations, including three for former film critic Scott Foundas, who was included in the best critic category. The Weekly's film issue was nominated for "best entertainment publication," and staff writer Libby Molyneaux got a best feature (under 1,000 words) nod.
As usual, AAN members are well-represented in the list of finalists for the 2010 James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards, which recognize excellence in food writing. The L.A. Weekly's Jonathan Gold and Westword's Jason Sheehan (who is now at Seattle Weekly) are both nominated for the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Reviews, and Gold is also a finalist in the Writing on Spirits, Wine or Beer category. Elsewhere, the Newspaper Feature Writing category is comprised only of AAN members, with two Chicago Reader pieces and one from the Village Voice vying for the top prize. Westword nabs another finalist in the Newspaper Feature Writing About Restaurants and/or Chefs, where it is joined as a finalist by Washington City Paper. And last, but certainly not least, the Houston Press is a finalist in the Multimedia Food Feature category. Winners will be announced on May 2.
The Independent Weekly won seven total awards this year from the North Carolina Press Association, including the Hugh Morton Photographer of the Year, the highest honor given in the photography category. That award for non-daily photographers went to the paper's D.L. Anderson for the second year in a row, with the judges praising him for having "an eye for the unique, a great sense of composition, a technical touch and a natural knack." The Indy also placed first in the Online Breaking News, Best Video, General Excellence Website and Criticism categories. Mountain XPress took home two awards, including a first place win for Best Multimedia Project, and Creative Loafing (Charlotte) received one award.
Albuquerque's The Alibi turned the tables on Gustavo Arellano, the columnist behind the racy ¡Ask a Mexican! column. The paper challenged Arellano to ask a New Mexican, and the result, he says, was "brilliant." Joseph Baca, a wine writer and native of the state, answered questions on Santo Niño de Atocha, curanderas, chile and Hispanos. "That Baca guy has a future outside of vacas!," Arellano says.
The legal battle between the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the SF Weekly is "a war straight out of the last century in its ruthlessness and its destructive potential," writes The Stranger's Eli Sanders in a 10,000-plus word cover story this week. The piece covers a lot of ground, but frames the battle as one between two alt-titans: Bay Guardian publisher Bruce Brugmann and Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey. "These two men have hated each other for decades," Sanders writes, "but with increasing venom since 1995, when Lacey showed up in San Francisco in cowboy boots to announce that he and his partners had just purchased the tiny SF Weekly and planned to make a huge success of it."
Nick Schou has followed up his 2006 book on Gary Webb with Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World, which was released yesterday. The book examines the Brotherhood, dubbed the "Hippie Mafia," which grew from a small group of surfers to the biggest group of acid dealers and hashish smugglers in the nation. Schou tells his Weekly colleague Matt Coker that he had to go to some extraordinary lengths to track down Brotherhood members for the book. "I had to hike a mile up a really remote slope in Maui to talk to a Buddhist hermit who was able get me an interview with Ram Dass, [Timothy] Leary's Harvard philosophy colleague and acid researcher," He says. "Another time, I had to play guitar with a Brotherhood smuggler who has a cable access television show in Santa Cruz."
A lawsuit filed by the Bank of Montreal on behalf of a group of institutional lenders seeks a temporary restraining order and injunction to stop the San Francisco Bay Guardian's efforts to collect millions of dollars from SF Weekly as part of 2008's predatory-pricing jury verdict. Last week, a Superior Court commissioner ruled that the Guardian is entitled to half of the Weekly's ad revenue; the banks are arguing that they have the first legal right to any money made by the Weekly. Meanwhile, The Stranger reports that it has court filings that show Weekly parent company Village Voice Media Holdings has been declared in default on an $80 million loan it has from the Bank of Montreal. This comes as the Weekly is asking for a separate restraining order to stop the Guardian from sending letters to Weekly advertisers; they say advertisers have been receiving conflicting notices from the Guardian and Bank of Montreal about who has first rights to the Weekly's revenue. In a court filing, the Weekly's lawyer says the confusion, if allowed to continue, "is likely to devastate SF Weekly's advertising business beyond repair."
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