Jay Smith and Buddy Solomon, Cox Newspaper executives who sit on the Creative Loafing board as a result of Cox's 25 percent ownership in the alt-weekly chain, were apparently taking notes during the board meetings. The proof? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cox's flagship daily, last week rolled out accessAtlanta, a free-circulation weekly aimed directly at CL's young readers. John Sugg dubs the new paper Creative Loafing's Mini-Me and says CL has taken steps to freeze out Cox's Trojan Horse board members. "This action has exposed [Smith and Solomon] to charges of conflict of interest and the appearance of bad faith and ethics," says CL President and CEO Ben Eason. "We intend to wage this war with everything we have."
New York is mired in the biggest budget shortfall in its history. Village Voice writer Sydney H. Schanberg says Gov. George Pataki put political gain way ahead of the pain this fiscal hemorrhage will cause, especially for the state's poorest residents. "The scandal-tinged governorship of George Elmer Pataki is now caught in its biggest scandal of all — how he, apparently to ensure his election to a third term last year, kept from the voters the gravity of the state's financial situation and thus worsened the crisis by not taking early emergency measures to deal with it," Schanberg writes.
Sara Catania, staff writer at LA Weekly, is one of 12 journalists awarded John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford University for the 2003-04 academic year. During their stay at Stanford, the Knight Fellows design independent courses of study and participate in special seminars. Catania will pursue her interests in mental illness and criminal law.
The patients, recent immigrants from countries such as Mexico and Vietnam, are bused in from Arizona for procedures ranging from circumcisions to colonoscopies at a string of California clinics. Every single operation is unnecessary, part of a shocking new health-care scam in which perfectly healthy patients voluntarily go under the knife (or scope) -- and, thanks in part to state laws that force insurance companies to pay claims promptly, everybody involved gets rich. As Paul Rubin of Phoenix New Times reports, it's not always easy money.
Lisa M. Collins (Metro Times), Mara Shalhoup (Creative Loafing Atlanta), and Jason Sheehan (Westword) are among the 60 finalists for Livingston Awards this year. The Livingston Awards, the nation's largest all-media, general reporting prizes, award three $10,000 prizes for Local, National, and International Reporting to journalists under the age of 35. The winners will be announced June 17, 2003.
The Washington Post examines the revival of "retro chic" Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Buried about halfway through the story is the line, "Print ads are relegated to the bargain bin of weekly alternative papers." Who's chugging Pabst (and presumably reading alt-weeklies)? Snowboarders, indie filmmakers, "suited-up young Republicans, faux cowboys and dead-serious blue-collar drinkers," Bret Schulte writes. Of course, AAN papers are so hip they were writing about this phenomenon months ago.
Imagine that your hometown was being bombed and all you could do was watch. Imagine that your 17-year-old son was questioned by government agents who appeared at your door. That’s what the last month has been like for one family of Iraqi-Americans who left their closest relatives in Baghdad. Chrisanne Beckner talks to three Iraqi women as they watch their homeland being blown to bits.
Stream International in Kalispell, Mont., specializes in providing call center services for a variety of brand-name computer makers, Internet providers and other high-tech firms. Last year, when Stream was named Montana's Company of the Year, Gov. Judy Martz told an applauding audience that, "Stream is a strong global company committed to its employees." David Madison reports that two weeks ago, Stream demonstrated its commitment by laying off a third of its Kalispell workforce while expanding north of border, where its Canadian employees make even less than those in the U.S.
"'We told you so' is hardly an endearing newspaper motto, let alone the breakfast of champions, but sometimes it's all we little guys have," says Seattle Weekly Editor Knute Berger, explaining why he felt it was necessary to toot his papers' horn for its coverage of mismanagement at the local PBS affiliate. Berger says that when the president of the station was forced to resign last week, the Seattle Times implied that its impending investigation was the reason.
