SF Weekly's October 2006 cover story about the detached management style of former U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan turned up in one of the emails released in the Justice Department's latest document dump. "Thought you might be interested in this; It's from a local weekly," Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis wrote to several colleagues as he forwarded Martin Kuz's tale of mismanagement and upheaval within the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco. According to Kuz, "while the other seven deposed U.S. attorneys earned mostly high marks for their work, Ryan arguably deserved his fate."

Continue ReadingFinally! Alt-Weeklies Tied to U.S. Attorneys Scandal

Viacom subsidiary College Publisher has dropped language in its contract with the University of Hawaii-Manoa's student newspaper that forbade any stories critical of the firm or its corporate partners, the Honolulu Weekly reports. The dispute was made public last week when the alt-weekly reported the student paper's website had been down since February due to the stalled contract talks. The provision was removed the next day, according to the Weekly. College Publisher provides an online publishing system for the websites of more than 450 university and college newspapers.

Continue ReadingHonolulu Weekly Story Helps Resolve Contract Dispute

All the finalists in the "Newspapers: Local Circulation Weeklies" category were AAN members, but Todd Spivak came out on top for "Run Over By Metro." The prestigious awards, given by Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc., recognize the most outstanding watchdog journalism of the year. Judges said Spivak's "compelling and vivid narrative writing gives extraordinary power to the victims' stories and fuels the outrage over the agency's misconduct." The other finalists were Sarah Fenske of Phoenix New Times (for "Cracked Houses"), Dan Frosch of the Santa Fe Reporter (for "The Wexford Files"), and Matthew Fleischer of LA Weekly (for "Navahoax").

Continue ReadingHouston Press Reporter Wins IRE Award

On the heels of yesterday's story that the alt-weekly is reportedly on the market for $25 million, unnamed "informed observers" tell the Philadelphia Daily News that Philadelphia Media Holdings (PMH) is among the bidders. PMH owns both the Daily News and Philly's other daily, the Inquirer. "All I can say is no comment," PMH CEO Brian Tierney says.

Continue ReadingMore Rumblings About Possible Philadelphia Weekly Sale

As we reported earlier this month, the alt-weekly's story on Anna Nicole Smith's "secret Native American love child" was indeed fake. Stephen Lemons, who wrote the story, tallies up the carnage this week, reporting that CBS News, Gawker and the New Zealand Herald were among the outlets that fell for it. And while the paper was offered $500,000 for photos of the non-existent baby boy at one point, Lemons notes that many of the paper's regular readers knew it was a hoax all along.

Continue ReadingPhoenix New Times Reveals the Anatomy of a Hoax