Alisa Solomon emerged from a subway stop near the World Trade Center seconds before its second tower was struck by a plane. "(W)e knew in our bellies that America was changed forever," she writes in the Village Voice online report. "Arms, legs. Parts of people. They were falling on my head," said an administrative assistant who was about to enter the WTC when the first plane hit.
"If the vote was 5 to 1 against Nick, the discussion would pause for a respectful second and then proceed as though no vote was taken until we all came around to Nick's point of view or reached a new compromise." That's how decisions were made in the early days of the Austin Chronicle, according to Editor Louis Black, who says Founder and Publisher Nick Barbaro was almost always right, and more importantly, "had a vision of how this paper should relate to the community and how a business should conduct itself." Twenty years later things still "happen when they happen, get done when they get done, and every Thursday morning" newcomers are "both pleased and astonished to find the piles of issues stacked in the hallway."
Columbia Journalism Review delves into newsroom morale in its latest issue. Among the views presented are two from alternative newsweeklies. Former TV reporter Tom Grant is positively euphoric about his new job at The Local Planet Weekly . Meanwhile, over at East Bay Express, there's quite a different outlook.
Bruce B. Brugmann, publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, is one of four International Press Institute delegates who went to South Korea to investigate the arrest of three newspaper owners/publishers. The IPI "press freedom mission" met with members of the South Korean government and legislature, and held a news conference in Seoul on Sept. 6.
