In a complaint filed with the Oregon Attorney General, Portland Mercury Publisher Rob Crocker claims a Willamette Week ad rep offered one of his advertisers a special rate contingent on stopping advertising in the Mercury, the Portland Tribune reports. WW Publisher Richard Meeker tells Tribune that his newspaper does not have such policies and that the situation was merely "an isolated incident" and a mistake.
In an interview with townonline.com, Boston Phoenix media critic Dan Kennedy says he's a "bit ambivalent" about leaving the Phoenix to write a book for Rodale on raising children with dwarfism. " I think everyone in the business wants to write a book at one time or another," Kennedy tells the community webzine. "But what do we do? Writers write. " Kennedy has a 9-year-old daughter with the genetic condition achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism.
Unable to pay the printer to publish last week's issue, Yesse! Communications President and Bloomington Independent Publisher Craig Hitchcock announced Friday that the paper would "suspend operations ... with the hope of restarting in March." Hitchcock tells the Bloomington Herald-Times that a post-Sept. 11 decline in advertising revenue of 15-20 percent forced his hand. The closure leaves Yesse! with two papers, Dayton, Ohio's Impact Weekly and Springfield's Illinois Times.
