News

Read more about the article Boston’s Weekly Dig Announces Big, Big, Big Editorial Changes

Joe Keohane will be stepping down as editor next month and will be replaced by current music/food/commerce editor Michael Brodeur, the Dig announced today. "Running this zoo has been enormously fun," says Keohane, "but I've always said that turnover is key to keeping an alt-weekly fresh, and Brodeur's the guy for the job." The Dig also announced that staff writer Paul McMorrow will be promoted to news and features editor; Jim Stanton has been hired "to rehabilitate the paper's disastrously bad website;" and Salon.com writer Cintra Wilson will soon begin contributing a semimonthly celebrity column.

Continue ReadingBoston’s Weekly Dig Announces Big, Big, Big Editorial Changes

When law professor-turned-blogger Jack Bogdanski posted an item about a shooting outside a downtown hip-hop club, the Mercury's Matt Davis accused him of inciting racism, leading to a flame war that spread to other local sites, reports the Oregonian. Bogdanski responded by blocking the alt-weekly's IP address, preventing Mercury employees from posting comments on his site. "It's like a jihad, when these guys (at the Mercury) get going, they just pour it on," Bogdanski tells the Oregonian. To which Davis responds: "Regardless of (Bogdanski's) readership or our readership, I don't think we should be cutting conversation down. It's important that Portland have a conversation about race."

Continue ReadingPortland Mercury Incites Local Blog War

Get used to it. That's the message for the daily-newspaper industry found in a new report on print profit margins released by Prudential Equity Research, reports Editor & Publisher. The article points to McClatchy's surprise sale of its flagship daily, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, as yet another sign of the times. "Many newspapers operate at a 30 percent [margin], but those don't seem to be the ones for sale," says Steven Barlow, Prudential's lead analyst.

Continue ReadingPrint Advertising Slump Likely to Stick Around, Hurting Margins

Amy Gahran says that papers that use the same headline for an article in print and on their Web site are making a mistake. "Online headlines should be intuitive, not cryptic, vague, or leading," says Gahran. "A well-crafted online headline provides the reader with sufficient information and incentive to decide whether to click a link to read the story." NOTE FROM AAN: Descriptive headlines also optimize search-engine results.

Continue ReadingPoynter: Online and Print Headlines Need to Work, not Match

In an interview promoting his new book, a collection from his long-running Voice column, Michael Musto says that in his "billions of years" at the paper, he has been censored only once, for a JonBenet joke that even he agrees was way off-base. "Otherwise, I've been given free reign to overdo, overemote, overstate and be overjoyed," the popular gossip columnist tells the New York Blade. "I’m extremely spoiled to have been coddled, nurtured, liberated and allowed to carry on like a free range chicken."

Continue ReadingMusto: I’ve Had Free Reign at The Village Voice

Richard Diefenbach read Gustavo Arellano's syndicated column for the first time in the Weekly Alibi, while on vacation in Albuquerque. He was so enthused with the column -- which that week addressed readers' questions about "the Mexican love affair with chicken and similarities between Mexicans and the Irish," according to Arellano -- that when he returned to work in his hometown of Newport, Ore., he printed a copy and gave it to a Mexican-American co-worker. The following day Diefenbach was suspended from work for five days without pay, accused of racial discrimination and sexual harassment.

Continue ReadingMan Suspended From Work for Sharing ‘Ask a Mexican’