Statistics released this week by the Pulp and Paper Products Council show that, in 2006, total U.S. newsprint consumption decreased 6.3 percent from the previous year. Paul Quinn of Salman Partners tells Editor & Publisher newsprint consumption is down 24.2 percent since its 1999 peak, as publishers have "reduce[d] consumption by format (broadsheet to tabloid and web-width reductions) and page count (elimination of daily stock tables)." The price of newsprint has seen a large drop in recent months, as well, according to Deutche Bank's Mark Wilde, falling $35/tonne in the past two months to $614.74/tonne.
After taking a pounding for a good week from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the mainstream-media syndication service finally admitted yesterday that its earlier story, about a judge's ruling on the SFBG-Media Alliance motion seeking access to documents in the Hearst-MediaNews antitrust suit, left out some important details. "The story should have noted that Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc. and The Hearst Corp ... had earlier voluntarily released some records that had been filed under seal," AP now says. Most importantly, SFBG, AP, and Bay Area papers owned by Hearst and MediaNews report that those records, and other documents unsealed by the judge in response to SFBG's motion, demonstrate the two companies have had a cozy relationship for decades, even before they consummated the complex deal that led to the antitrust suit.
More than 250 performances -- "an all-time high for the event," reports the Detroit Free Press -- will highlight the Motor City alt-weekly's 10th annual Blowout music festival March 7-10. The Detroit News says Blowout is "considered by local artists to be the most important local music event of the year."
Last week we noted a story in Springfield, Illinois' State-Journal Register about Shatonia Levy, a Houston Press marketing manager who was also a former high school basketball legend. Apparently, the champion of the Pillow Fight League, who goes by the stage name "Champain," also works in the marketing department of an alternative newspaper, although the Boston Herald doesn't bother to tell us which one. Champain, if you're out there, let us know. We honor all of our pillow-fight champions.
The Texas alt-weekly recently published a cover story criticizing the Trans-Texas Corridor, arguing "that the project could wipe towns off the map, gobble up about a million acres of farm and ranch land, crumble the state’s current highway system, and gouge motorists with tolls as high as 44 cents a mile." An item on the paper's Web site this week notes that another Texas publisher which also wrote critically of the project was acquired for "upward of $100 million" by Macquarie Media Group of Australia, which is a sister company to Macquarie Infrastructure Group, one of the world’s major toll road operators. "Surely Fort Worth Weekly publisher Lee Newquist’s phone will be ringing any second now with a call from Australia and an offer of millions of dollars," predicts the paper's Static column.
The latest to leave are OC Weekly feature editor Rebecca Schoenkopf, whose Commie Girl column won last year's big-paper AltWeekly Award for best political column, and City Pages music critic Jim Walsh, who served two stints at the Minneapolis alt-weekly, the latest beginning in 2003. OC Register columnist Frank Mickadeit reports that Schoenkopf has "been ready to leave the Weekly for some time, simply because she needed a change" and that "her dream job would be editor-in-chief of an alternative weekly somewhere." In her farewell column, Schoenkopf puts the paper's recent ownership change into context: "It could have been worse: Dean Singleton could have bought our newspaper. At least this way, we still get to call people twats." (OC Weekly music editor Chris Ziegler also left the paper, Schoenkopf notes in her column.)
An envelope mailed to the News & Review last month contained a CD, a threatening note, and a metal aerosol can marked "anthrax," reports the paper. After notifying the authorities, the weekly's offices were visited by local police, hazardous-materials experts, G-men and assorted officials associated with the local Joint Terrorism Task Force. The sender turned out to be a local crank/activist named Marc Keyser, who had been the topic of a 2002 News & Review cover story on his efforts to protect a local water system from terrorist attacks. Keyser, who claimed the package was meant to alert the paper to the anthrax threat, was not prosecuted. "The FBI showed up at my door and said it caused a bit of a scare," Keyser tells the alt-weekly. "We had a nice chat. They and their families are not vaccinated. But they carry guns."
GetMobio enables users to "find nightclubs, make restaurant reservations or find alternative flights via cell phone," reports Online Media Daily. The new service was unveiled yesterday by Mobio Networks, a mobile-lifestyle application provider that is partnering with Open Table and Kaboodle, and has raised $9 million in venture capital funds.
Media General has pulled the plug on its struggling Orange magazine, reports Creative Loafing Tampa. The closure comes one week after the faux-alt's editor, Mitzi Gordon, was fired for running an article about a fashion designer and her online store, The CUNT Shop. That issue hit the streets a day late after company executives decided to scrap a full run and reprinted the paper with the offending article removed. Orange's publisher says the newspaper, which had shrunk to 20 pages in recent weeks, "didn't meet our business expectations." Gordon tells CL that Media General was never clear about what they wanted from the paper or why they hired her. "I was idealistic," she says. "I was trying to create something that was going to create a buzz. I should have known that Media General wasn't going to stand for my hijinks."
- Go to the previous page
- 1
- …
- 607
- 608
- 609
- 610
- 611
- 612
- 613
- …
- 1,273
- Go to the next page
