After 27 years at Mass General, social worker Hope Cranska was abruptly laid off. The hospital calls it a simple case of downsizing, but evidence points to another explanation: age discrimination. Cranska's lawsuit against the hospital still hasn't been resolved although a jury awarded her $631,000 in damages in 1999, Kristen Lombardi writes in the Boston Phoenix. Cranska's case epitomizes "the potential injustices faced by outspoken older employees in bottom-line American corporate culture," Lombardi writes.
Media giant Gannett Co. is launching its first salvo in a war to win the elusive 25-to-34 year old reader away from alternative newsweeklies. In Lansing, Mich., and Boise, Idaho, Gannett dailies are set to begin publishing "alternative" weeklies this fall. Established alts in those markets are bracing for the ruthless competition described by Richard McCord in his book "Chain Gang." Berl Schwartz, publisher of City Pulse in Lansing, scoffs at the notion the Gannett weekly will be an edgy alternative publication. "What is it an alternative to?" he asks. "Itself?"
A simple piece of plastic, the Government Travel Card (GTC), has plunged thousands of ordinary servicemen and servicewomen into debt so deep that the Pentagon is busy garnishing the wages of its own soldiers, Geoffrey Gray reports in The Village Voice. And the lone military commander known to raise hell about the scheme—an Air Force colonel based in the Midwest—tells the Voice that blowing the whistle on the GTC ruined her career.
Steve Schewel, president of Independent Weekly's parent company, and Ben Eason, president of Creative Loafing, announce the sale of Raleigh's alt-weekly to its Durham rival. By October, the two papers will merge into one, to be called the Independent. "We were able to work out this acquisition because we admire the Creative Loafing folks and their commitment to great alternative journalism in the South," Schewel said in a news release. "Instead of knocking heads with us in the Triangle, they can take the cash from this sale and build even better papers in the cities where they're already very strong."