Willamette Week Editor Mark Zusman tells the American Journalism Review this month that his reporters are taken seriously by the people and institutions they cover because "we have for 30 years now been publishing stories that have resulted in people getting put behind bars, or getting laws changed, or good people getting recognized, or justice prevailing." Zusman's interview appears in "The Pulitzer Cartel," an article in the October/November issue of AJR in which the magazine's Donna Shaw explores why four newspapers -- The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal -- "have dramatically increased their share of Pulitzer largesse over the years." Writes Shaw: "Some Pulitzer-watchers believe that favoritism and politics play a role in the dominance of the big papers." But Zusman, whose paper won a 2005 Pulitzer for investigative reporting, disagrees: "The New York Times does extraordinarily good journalism and that's why they win... That's why the Washington Post wins."
San Francisco was invaded by 261 enthusiastic newspaper professionals last weekend when the AAN West conference hit town. The highly-anticipated Saturday keynote speech by Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, passed without physical skirmish, despite a lively question-and-answer session. Many of the seminars were equally lively, and the parties -- well, you had to be there.
