"Senator Kyl agrees that FOIA needs to be modernized, though the bill in its current form has a series of unintended consequences that need to be repaired," the senator's press secretary Ryan Patmintra explains to the New York Times. As we've reported previously, Sen. Kyl (R-AZ) is the one person standing in the way of the passage of the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which would reform the way government agencies respond to FOIA requests. Last month, Cox News Service reported that the bill was in a "legislative black hole" due to Kyl's hold. "Don't expect a huge uproar if the bill doesn't make it. With an election coming, data secrecy isn't the sexiest issue," writes the Times' David Carr. "But many of those 'Holy cow' newspaper articles you read have their roots in the banal bureaucracy of government information." AAN encourages you to help get these important FOIA reforms passed -- to learn how, click here.

Continue ReadingMore on FOIA Reform Bill & Senator Jon Kyl’s Hold

Despite having drawn a weekly "Life is Hell" cartoon for L.A. Weekly for 20-plus years, The Simpsons creator says he's never set foot in the paper's office. "I'm sure very nice people work there, but here's the thing: I used to work at the [Los Angeles] Reader, and I noticed ... that people go crazy," he says in a wide-ranging L.A. Weekly profile. Groening then recounts how, after working for the Reader as a proofreader, paste-up artist, editor, critic and columnist, they fired him for selling his comic strip to Pasadena Weekly for $10 a week. "All I know is that the last time I showed up at a newspaper office, I got fired," Groening says.

Continue ReadingMatt Groening on His Alt-Weekly Roots

The former executive editor of OC Weekly recalls the days when, helped along by a 2002 AAN Diversity Grant, the man who'd become "The Mexican" got his start at the Weekly. "'That kid is going to be more famous than any of us some day,'" Coker, who now edits Sacramento News & Review, remembers thinking. "What did surprise me was how quickly some day came." He says Arellano's transition to "national media spokesman on all-things-Latino" was partly a function of timing ("¡Ask a Mexican!" started getting more attention as the immigration debate heated up), but also of "a lot of shameless self promotion. Not only is Arellano the most shameless of the shameless self promoters I have ever known in this business, he also is the most self-aware of his own shamelessness, which I find kind of cute." Apparently, not everyone at OC Weekly agreed with Coker: he reports that there was plenty of jealousy of Arellano's fame -- and his six-figure book deal -- in the newsroom as well.

Continue ReadingMatt Coker: Gustavo Arellano’s Fame ‘Doesn’t Surprise Me a Lick’

A strip each of Matt Bors' "Idiot Box" and Jen Sorenson's "Slowpoke" are among the 12 finalists in The Union of Concerned Scientists' competition rewarding "creative takes on the issue of political interference in science." Voting for "Science Idol: the Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest" closes July 23.

Continue ReadingTwo Alt-Weekly Cartoonists Compete in ‘Science Idol’ Contest

Former L.A. Weekly news editor Alan Mittelstaedt joined Los Angeles CityBeat yesterday as news editor, replacing Dean Kuipers, who moved to the Los Angeles Times. A little further down the coast, Rich Kane, who left OC Weekly in 2005 and ended up as editor of Inland Empire Weekly (a paper started by ex-OC Weekly staffer Jeremy Zachary that was later acquired by LA CityBeat-parent Southland Publishing), returns to the Weekly Aug. 2 as its new managing editor. Replacing Kane at Inland Empire is Charles Mindenhall, a former L.A. Weekly staffer.

Continue ReadingIt’s Musical Chairs at SoCal Alt-Weeklies