Earlier this month, Weekly Alibi laid off three editorial employees, effectively eliminating the paper’s news department. There's no word yet whether they'll be replaced.
A photo of the marquee of a local nudie bar ("Breast of Seattle") graces the covers this week of both Seattle Weekly and The Stranger. For the Weekly, the photo illustrates the paper's annual "Best of Seattle" reader survey; for The Stranger, it fronts for "the Best of Kevin Jones' Apartment." Weekly publisher Alisa Cromer tells the Seattle Times, "It's like having an annoying younger brother repeating everything you say."
The folks at Willamette Week have agreed to sell the paper to Mark "Bingo" Barnes, and his wife Sally Gay Barnes, according to a report in today's Boise Weekly. Bingo, director of creative services for the Greenspun Media Group’s newspaper division (which includes the non-AAN alternative Las Vegas Weekly), is a familiar face to those who have attended the last few AAN conventions.
John Sugg will leave Tampa in late August to become senior editor at the company’s flagship paper, Atlanta’s Creative Loafing. Senior editor “in our lexicon means that I’ll be the lead writer and that I’ll be building and leading the writing team,” says Sugg, who is "second on the masthead" under the paper's editor, Ken Edelstein.
Philadelphia City Paper's Howard Altman lets The Inquirer's Tony Ridder have it right between the eyes. the daily is laying off editorial staff due to financial woes. Altman gives Ridder some advice on surviving a downturn –– ditch the focus groups, concentrate on the city not the 'burbs, bring the reporters back when times improve and don't abandon foreign reporting.
