It was cold outside, but almost 220 individuals braved the weather in Washington, D.C., to attend the AAN East regional conference. They were rewarded with lively seminars, networking opportunities -- and an invitation to write on the walls.
Anyone "familiar with the alternative newspaper industry in Pittsburgh would have seen failure coming" at the Madison, Wis. faux-alt, argues Indiana University of Pennsylvania student Emily Jo Boots in the school newspaper. According to Boots, the Core Weekly train wreck was foreseeable because the paper was the brainchild of Catherine Nelson, the same publisher who oversaw the demise of both In Pittsburgh and Pulp in the Steel City. "It sounds to me like Nelson thinks that dumbing down a newspaper will make everyone want to read it," Boots writes after summarizing Core Weekly's business plan. "It seems that Nelson didn’t learn a thing when her business philosophy as a publishing consultant ran Pulp into the ground."
Originally published in 2004 as a one-time spoof, Gustavo Arellano's "Ask a Mexican" has taken on a life of its own, landing the 27-year-old reporter and editor a regular gig on a right-wing talk radio show as well as the front page of today's Los Angeles Times. In his weekly column, Arellano answers the kind of frank questions about Mexican stereotypes (e.g., "Why do Mexicans put on their Sunday best to shop at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, etc.?") that aren't normally asked in polite society. According to the Times, he gets away with it because his writing is "historically and culturally accurate" and "imbued with affection for Mexican immigrants." But not everyone is thrilled. OC Weekly Editor Will Swaim tells the Times he still fields the occasional call or e-mail demanding that Arellano be fired.
Eight of the prospective members are previous applicants, and two are owned by alt-weekly veterans who had been members during a previous association with different papers. AAN members will also be asked this year to evaluate Boston's Weekly Dig and Des Moines' Cityview, the first two post-sale newspapers whose membership will be reviewed under a process established in 2004 when the association's bylaws were amended. The fate of all of these papers will be determined at the organization's next Annual Meeting, which will be held in Little Rock on Saturday, June 17, the last day of the 29th annual AAN convention.
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