Ownership of Illinois Times reverted today from bankrupt Yesse Communications to former owner, Fletcher "Bud" Farrar. Immediate changes include dropping sex ads, increasing circulation and moving distribution back inside grocery stores. Farrar says in a news release he intends to make 27-year-old Illinois Times more "family friendly" and transform it into a community newspaper "in the best tradition of small-town weeklies."
Dallas Observer's Eric Celeste understands why the local daily rejects them, but he's not sure why his own paper is cutting back. Publisher Alison Draper says it's because sex ads are "a managerial nightmare." And Editor Julie Lyons, who thinks the ads are "disgusting," calls Draper's decision to scale them back "the most courageous thing I've ever seen a publisher do."
Terry Coe, former publisher of Riverfront Times, is the new publisher of Seattle Weekly, David Schneiderman, CEO of Village Voice Media announced today. Coe resigned from the St. Louis newsweekly in May after 17 years with the New Times organization.
New anti-rave bills working their way through Congress are meant to stick it to the makers of illegal drugs, but music promoters say they'll be a civil rights nightmare. H.R. 3782 would punish rave promoters for "reasonably knowing" that a controlled substance was used at their event. That broad, vague wording leaves the door wide open for police to arrest anyone who puts on a music festival, much less a rave. "It gives police more latitude to act on a whim or personal prejudices," performer/promoter Oliver Brown tells Mike Connor of Metro Santa Cruz.
The ink is barely dry on the sale of SLAMM, a San Diego music biweekly, but the new owners have set Aug. 21 as the launch date for a new redesigned alternative newspaper, San Diego CityBeat. The new weekly will target the 21- to 45-year-old crowd and San Diego's central university and historic neighborhoods, Publisher Charles Gerencser says. "I wouldn't have moved my pregnant wife and sold my house in Los Angeles, where I've lived my whole life, if I didn't think this was going to be an amazingly successful venture," Gerencser says.
Security agencies may already be poring over your grocery list. In a fit of anti-terror zeal, an eager beaver at a national grocery chain gave the company's records for all preferred customers to three federal agencies, Eric Baard of The Village Voice reports. Meanwhile, security forces, both public and private, are devising ever more sophisticated ways to spot potential terrorists. If you like hummus, you might be in their cross-hairs.
