Alternative newsweeklies may fill more than half of their editorial space each week with contributions from freelancers. But how do editors go about finding the writers who are willing to work erratic hours for modest pay and yet are professional enough to deliver prose that not only comes in on time but sings? Writer Marty Levine collects the wisdom of several AAN editors who explain how they found their best freelancers, how they keep them content and what pitfalls to avoid.
Jeralyn Merritt, a Denver criminal defense lawyer who uses her Web log to promote her liberal views about the criminal justice system, never considered selling space to advertisers. Then she got a call from Henry Copeland. Since then, the Democratic National Committee, presidential candidate John Kerry and congressional candidates have advertised on her blog, www.talkleft.com. In March, the ads generated $1,000 in revenue
In 1999, when Debra DeCarlo became principal of a Providence, R.I., high school, she was faced with problems common to many urban school districts. State and local budget cuts had reduced or completely eliminated resources once deemed essential. Confused curriculum standards made it daunting for teachers to create lesson plans. Truancy and disciplinary problems turned class time into a discouraging, even life-threatening experience. There were more dropouts than graduates. The building itself was coming apart. It still is. Marion Davis reports for The Providence Phoenix on how educators like DeCarlo are addressing such challenges by taking chances and making a difference, not so much in test scores, but in how their students feel about learning.
Creative Loafing Charlotte "is still waiting for some kind of clarification or retraction after a March 16 WCNC-TV report that had a Charlotte-Mecklenburg vice officer saying that CL is kind of a pimp for illegal 'spas,'" Shannon Reichley writes. No one on the broadcast accused the daily Charlotte Observer, which runs the same ads, of pimping, the alt-weekly's media columnist complains. Still, she's never liked the fact that the two papers earn cash from businesses she describes as legitimate but "sleazoids."
Patients' private medical or psychiatric records could go up on the Web, and there's little the victims could do to get them down, Tara Servatius reports in Creative Loafing Charlotte. Jignesh Tanna of Vashi Transcribe in India threatened U.S. doctors that he'd publish their patients' records if a North Carolina firm, Accuscribe, didn't pay his company the money he felt it was owed. Although he later retracted the warning, the dispute remains unresolved. Servatius describes how outsourcing dilutes the privacy protections contained in the Health Insurance Portablity and Accountability Act.
On Wednesday, Publishers Information Bureau reported that total magazine rate card revenue totaled slightly more than $4 billion in the first three months of the year, up 7 percent year-over-year, even as the total amount of ad pages sold fell 2.3 percent to about 48,000.
Shampoo makers, brewers and other companies that generally pitch products on television are turning their sights to newspapers, helping foster a nascent advertising recovery for the medium after a stubborn slump.
When the prostitute realized she would never have children, she chose the name she had fantasized about giving to her daughter as her escort name. The unnamed woman, telling her story to Eileen Loh Harrist of Gambit Weekly, says at first it was easy to service men. But the trade became more complex after escorts launched their own Web sites, featuring client-written reviews. The subject describes what it's like to be arrested by a naked cop and how the burdens of secrecy finally made her leave the profession.
