"When you're out there and you're living that fast life, you can never say what you wouldn't do," Falicia Blakely tells Mara Shalhoup in a jailhouse interview. Shalhoup reconstructs the events that led an 18-year-old to commit murder. The nude dancer was seduced by a club patron who bought diapers by the caseload for her baby and later insisted she sell herself to bring in cash. When her pimp made the ultimate demand, she delivered. The Creative Loafing Atlanta cover story is the first in a series.
Writing in Boston's Weekly Dig, Paul McMorrow tries to figure out why a book arguing that the Grand Canyon was created in the Great Biblical Flood is being sold in a park bookstore overseen by the National Park Service. "Nearly 80 years after Tennessee v. John Scopes supposedly made the world safe for science, militant creationism has returned with a vengeance," he writes. "And this time, it's seeking government sanction."
According to statistics released yesterday from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), U.S. music shipments from record companies to retail outlets declined 4.3 percent in 2003 and unit shipments declined 2.7 percent. Sounds bad, but compared to 2002, where music shipments declined 6.8 percent and unit shipments went down 7.8 percent, it seems like the decline rate is slowing down. The year 2003 was important for the recording industry, with record companies offering consumers the widest choice and variety of ways to access music, including through satellite radio and webcasting streams,exclusive release deals, different pricing strategies, new formats and value-added CD/DVD combinations in retail outlets.
Advertising sales and circulation executives across all magazines, including business and trade, hope advertisers and consumers read somewhere the news that the economy is on the mend. Till then, all parties concerned are advised patience and unity.
A spokesperson for the digital paper says it's obligated not to publish things that would offend "the reasonable sensibilities of our readers," Editor & Publisher reports. Rall believes the cartoon was dropped because of e-mail campaigns by conservatives. His award-winning cartoon appears in several AAN papers, including The Village Voice and Washington City Paper.
More people are reading daily newspapers, but in 2003 they spent a minute less on the weekday paper and seven minutes less on the Sunday paper than they did the previous year. Readership continues to drop in the 18- to 24-year-old age group "despite fresh efforts by many papers to reach younger readers," Editor & Publisher reports. Highest readership was found among African Americans and those 65 and older. Findings are from a survey by the Readership Institute, a division of the Media Management Center at Northwestern University.
Rather than just deliver the same old reliable features and columns every week, editors of AAN papers look for ways to tweak their content, thus attracting new readers and re-engaging the faithful. But there's no sense rounding up a focus group to predict what new ingredients will work when freelancers, staff and the guy on the next barstool are all eager to give their advice. John Dicker interviews editors of four weeklies who messed with the mix to get happy results.
Following an industry trend, the Arizona alt-weekly went down to 25 inches wide, from 27. At the same time it rearranged sections and added more music coverage, editor Jimmy Boegle announces in a special anniversary issue. Although columnists will be allotted 150 to 200 fewer words, the theory that readers don't like longer articles is "full of crap," Boegle says, and word counts in most news and arts stories will remain the same. AAN associate member Katherine Topaz of Topaz Design did the redesign.
Some argue that the sexual revolution has yet to place men and women on a level playing field. The digital revolution, however, may be closing that gap. Harris Interactive's annual 360 Youth College Explorer Study, released today, found that men and women engage in online gaming, downloading music, and digital photography, as well as text messaging, at similar rates. Commissioned by Alloy's youth media and marketing division, 360 Youth, the study evaluated consumer technology and entertainment usage of college students ages 18-30. Although differences between the sexes have emerged from the research, it's clear that this demographic on the whole--of which 65 percent uses the broadband Internet daily--is far more "wired" than the general population, of which only 37 percent uses broadband.
