The Chicago Tribune's new youth-oriented tabloid hits the streets today, five days early. The Trib pushed up the start date to get out of the gate before rival Chicago Sun-Times' version of an "alternative," Trib media writer Jim Kirk reports. The Sun-Times tab will be called Red Streak, Kirk says.
In a letter to the Los Angeles Times responding to a column written by media critic David Shaw, AAN Executive Director Richard Karpel says Shaw's characterization of the alternative newsweekly business "is both inaccurate and misleading." Countering Shaw's assertions, Karpel claims AAN papers "are as unfettered as they ever were and far more independent than their competitors in the mainstream press."
Disproportionately infected, blacks confront the reality that AIDS is no longer a white, gay disease. Seattle Weekly's Nina Shapiro talks to African-Americans with the virus and looks at the latest developments in the deadly plague. Dr. Helene Gayle, former head of CDC's AIDS program, tells Shapiro the epidemic was simply going where epidemics usually go: into "communities of the disenfranchised" -- those with poor access to health care, high rates of drug use, and other social burdens that fuel disease.
Washington City Paper hasn't covered the D.C. area sniper attacks -- not one word, a decision Washington City Paper Editor Eric Wemple tells Philadelphia Weekly's Steve Volk he agonizes about every day. "We are in no position to do" hard news, especially outside the District, Wemple tells Volk. Even though he can post breaking news on the paper's Web site, he says "readers aren't trained to go to our Web site for a 34-car pileup on the Beltway."
