The Ohio weekly has changed its name to simply Alive and is now "the music, art and culture paper of Columbus," Publisher Sally Crane writes in an Oct. 17 editorial. Saying the paper was "stuck in a rut," Crane says Alive will quench those who "were thirsting for more of what they find relevant to their lives" -- and that's more on the arts, music and culture scenes "with tips and top picks in each category." Crane says it's hard for her, a former investigative reporter, to admit, but the paper was taking itself "a little too seriously."
Noise, Gannett's new "alternative" in Lansing, Mich., and the Chicago Tribune's RedEye both debuted last week, Mark Fitzgerald reports in Editor & Publisher. The Chicago Sun-Times answer to RedEye is due to launch on Wednesday, he reports.
Saying it’s "just business," the Tribune Co. has ordered five Advocate*Weekly billing and administrative staff to move their offices into the Hartford Courant building. The Tribune Co. says the move will help consolidate different billing and other business practices. "People over here are saying that if they do this, what's … next?" Advocate*Weekly CEO Fran Zankowski tells AAN News.
The world's most widely recognized alternative weekly has asked The Cape Cod Voice to ''cease and desist" from using the name ''Voice'' in its print or online edition, Mark Jurkowitz reports in The Boston Globe. The Village Voice says it ''has worked hard and succeeded in gaining recognition both nationally and internationally. We will not allow anyone to have a free ride on our name or denigrate the good will associated with it." The editor and publisher of the 10,000 circulation biweekly based in Orleans, Mass., says he won't give up without a fight. "I don't think any publication has the right to tell people they don't have the right to be the voice of their community,'' he says. This isn't the first time The Village Voice has fought this battle.
"I am thinking about the East Coast man who kills from afar. I am thinking he's an outcast who fantasizes about being a Marine sniper. I am thinking he is a man in love with the taste of power over human life, a power that can taste divine." Robert Nelson follows the twists a human mind can take.
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.
