Stay tuned this fall for a good read in the Chicago Reader. A federal judge ordered the city to release "five banker's boxes" of confidential police documents to the alternative newsweekly by August 30. The materials were sealed after the city settled a lawsuit filed by a woman who accused a police officer of rape. In an e-mail to AAN News, Reader Editor Alison True reports that in his written opinion (Download PDF Here), U.S. District Court Judge Ruben Castillo "commended" the Reader and reporter Tori Marlan "for their thorough investigative reporting and ongoing pursuit of truth in these types of misconduct cases."
Jerry Klein, a columnist for Creative Loafing Charlotte, writes his last column, laying bare his search for spiritual solace after having been "basically leveled, flattened" by fate. He’s moving on after exactly 365 columns and hopes it will be a Great Adventure.
Missoula Independent Publisher Matt Gibson writes a compelling story about the legal maneuvering that allowed Jeffrey M. Smith Jr. to obtain a concealed weapon permit in Montana, despite arrests for violent crimes and a diagnosis of manic depression. But this is Montana; what else is new? What makes this story unusual is that Smith formerly owned the Missoula Independent before he sold it to Gibson, who later sued him for breach of contract and trademark dilution.
Dennis Freeland, the sports writer — and former editor — of the Memphis Flyer has been diagnosed with brain cancer, but this grim news has not robbed him of his wit or his friends, just his future, writes Geoff Calkins, a sports columnist for The Commercial Appeal.
Husband-and-wife team Bingo and Sally Barnes are the new owner/operators of Boise Weekly. The sale by City of Roses Newspaper Company was official on August 1 and formally inked on August 2. Present and former owners all agree the paper needs the kind of local stewardship the Barnes say they’ll provide.
• Read the Idaho Statesman's story on the sale.
In its summer issue, Columbia Journalism Review tenders "laurels" to three AAN members – The Village Voice, the Nashville Scene, and Tampa’s Weekly Planet – for “good old-fashioned criticism of the big boys in town.” The journalism-mag crowns the beneficiaries with a left-handed compliment: “Who says the alternative press has sold its birthright for a mess of personal ads and restaurant reviews?”
