Kiki Yablon, who plays guitar in a punk rock band, has been promoted to managing editor of the Chicago Reader. She has been on the Reader's staff since 1996, directing the alt-weekly's music coverage, the Chicago Sun Times reports. Editor Alison True says Yablon is "perfect" for the job and won the position over a host of outside applicants. True has also promoted three Reader associate editors to senior editor: Holly Greenhagen, Kitry Krause and Laura Molzahn.
Susan Atkins, a Manson Family disciple, is seeking parole after 33 years behind bars. OC Weekly's R. Scott Moxley reviews her parole hearing file and finds testimonies to Atkin's prison redemption. A devout Christian, a married woman who needs a hearing aid, a mentor to other prisoners, a favorite of her jailers, an accomplished artist. Quite a trip from the woman who once testified that she'd stabbed pregnant actress Sharon Tate because the sound of Tate's voice pleading for her life was irritating.
Award-winning political writer and columnist Jim DeFede has resigned from Miami New Times, the Daily Business Review reports. DeFede, who has been at the paper for more than 10 years and says "(i)t was a great place to work," plans to write a book about the diversion of commercial air traffic to Newfoundland on Sept. 11. Local journalist Ed Wasserman says, “[DeFede] electrified municipal coverage in this town. He was simply the best I’ve seen in my 20-some years here.”
There's no question serial killer Cary Stayner is a monster. Currently serving life without parole for a homicide during which he kidnapped and raped 26-year-old Yosemite National Park environmentalist Joie Armstrong before decapitating her with a knife, Stayner faces new charges this June for the similarly misogynistic, brutal murders of Carole Sund, her 15-year-old daughter Juli, and Silvina Pelosso, a 16-year-old Argentine exchange student. Few people are likely to shed a tear should Stayner be put to death for his crimes. But this week the San Francisco Bay Guardian asks whether the satisfaction of revenge is worth the price tag. With the costs of capital punishment cases superceding those of incarcerating people for life by millions in taxpayer funds, even Armstrong's mother doesn't think so.
Chris Rohland, publisher of the non-AAN member alternative Las Vegas Weekly, is recovering from surgery to repair broken bones suffered in the April 14 accident that killed two people. Rohland's SUV was struck when a Ford Mustang crossed the center line into on-coming traffic. The two occupants of the Mustang were killed. Rohland had been scheduled to moderate a session at the AAN Convention on "How and Why To Do a Readership Study."
Bob Norman of New Times Broward/Palm Beach was the big winner in this year's Green Eyeshade competition, picking up three awards, including two first-places. Norman wasn't alone; AAN members captured 15 of the 24 awards handed out in the weekly/monthly category of SPJ's Southeast region contest: Miami New Times picked up six, New Times Broward/Palm Beach won five, Creative Loafing Atlanta took home three, and the Nashville Scene received one.
Two New Times investigative series were selected as winners in the 2002 John Bartlow Martin Awards, sponsored by Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. First place went to "Fallout," a look at the U.S. Navy's radioactive legacy in the Bay Area by SF Weekly's Lisa Davis. Phoenix New Times staff writer Amy Silverman captured third place for her special series "Slammed," which exposed abuses in Arizona's juvenile justice system. Sandwiched between them was Katherine Boo, former managing editor of Washington City Paper, for her story in The New Yorker on welfare mothers.
