Alt-Country: Notes from the Modern American Weekly

Come Again?
In Minneapolis, much has been made of the several infelicities busted recently by apple-cheeked editrix Kevin Hoffman of the City Pages. To wit: Hoff, in a mere 291 words, managed to 1.) write that new Minneapolis Star Tribune owner publisher Par Ridder had been “smacked around like a two-bit ho in a lawsuit”; 2.) refer to the Strib’s plan to outsource 25 jobs to New Delhi as “Operation: Sanjaya,” evincing both a steely grip of pop culture and the kind of delicate touch not seen outside of Flaubert and freerepublic.com; and 3.) write that soon the paper’s ad designer “will be taking a rickshaw to work.” Oh, and the headline: “Local business, meet your new advertising partner: Habib.” (Habib, of course, is an Arabic name used by many Muslim Indians, but not exactly common to the subcontinent, and certainly not the predominantly Hindu New Delhi.) What’s more, the offending words – excepting the headline and the rickshaw crack -- were squeegeed from the City Pages’ web site, no explanation given. We really have nothing to add to the fine work done by Minnesota Monitor (not to mention the always-entertaining peanut gallery over at MNspeak), except to say that Hoffman continues to demonstrate why he’s the chain’s wonderboy.

The Hoff's Bust-A-Graf Counter (total grafs busted by Kevin Hoffman during his tenure at City Pages):



Ass. Editor Now On Top
We're pleased as spiked punch to relay news of a promotion at the Cleveland Scene, that seeming font of corporate teat suckers. "Associate Editor Erich Burnett [again with the names!] will assume a fulltime Corporate Editorial role and begin to work directly with all of the top editors at VVM," writes high-order brass polisher Christine Brennan (author, incidentally, of the most bloated and ridiculous New Times VVM feature not about whales). The email goes on to describe Mr. Burnett's new duties. We include them here, with additional explication.

1. "Overseeing corporate copy editing." The AP has yet to put forth a ruling on whether it's My Space, MySpace, or myspace. Regardless, this is where most of the alt-weekly readership has wandered off to. "Tom" is their friend now.

2. "Film syndication; editing of DVD reviews, Game On." Translation: examining the packaging of New Times VVM's Big Macs, Whoppers, Chicken Nuggets – the prefab "content" it ships out to its ostensibly local-focused papers for reheating and publishing. That's right: Neither Jordan Harper nor Robert Wilonsky live in your town.

3. "Fellowship recruiting." Wherein New Times VVM shills show up at college j-school programs, threaten hopeful graduates with news of the dearth of journo jobs out there, then open their arms like a Fagan character, offering them $400 a week to report on orgasm clinics and fight clubs. If they do not like this, they can, in the kind words of the New Times VVM brass, go fuck themselves.

4. "Qualitative oversight of online listings." I.e. take up the never-ending fight that is New Times vs. the Internet. This is so sad it's almost charming. As page counts dwindle and ad dollars go online, New Times VVM rushes to the Web in a covered wagon, arriving with its pan and shovel and china doll. There's gold in them thar online spaces!

Needless to say, we wish Mr. Burnett all the luck in the world, for he will most certainly need it. Should things not work out, rest assured he can go fuck himself.