AAN News

Port Folio Weekly's Print Edition to be Suspendednew

As part of ongoing cost-cutting by its parent company, the 26-year-old alt-weekly will publish its last print edition next week. Its website will remain, and the paper may resume publishing when the economy improves, according to Maurice Jones, president and publisher of the Virginian-Pilot, which owns Port Folio. The Pilot is also laying off 30 employees, including some at Port Folio.
The Virginian-Pilot  |  02-19-2009  9:11 am  |  Industry News

Parent Co. Takes Port Folio Weekly and Related Papers Off the Marketnew

Landmark Media announced Tuesday that the credit crunch forced it to take the Virginian-Pilot and its affiliates in the Norfolk, Va. area, including Port Folio Weekly, off the market. Landmark vice chairman Richard F. Barry III says the company will resume the sale when the economy improves, but in the meantime it remains open to offers. The move does not affect Style Weekly, the other AAN member paper based in Virginia that is owned by Landmark, because it is not part of the Virginian-Pilot Media group.
The Virginian-Pilot  |  12-03-2008  8:04 am  |  Industry News

As Parent Company Cuts Costs, Port Folio Weekly's Future is Unclearnew

Plagued by an advertising decline, The Virginian-Pilot is cutting at least 125 positions, mostly through layoffs and shutting affiliated publications. The company has closed Link, a free daily tabloid, but publisher Maurice Jones said on Friday the Pilot "has not decided whether to continue Port Folio Weekly."
The Virginian-Pilot  |  11-24-2008  7:42 am  |  Industry News

Tom Robotham Out as Editor of Port Folio Weeklynew

"The reasons for my departure are complicated, but at the heart of the matter is a fundamental disagreement with the management of our parent company over editorial philosophy," Robotham wrote in an editor's note last week. "The higher ups here believed that Port Folio under my leadership had become too staunchly liberal." Robotham, who had been at Port Folio for ten years, has been replaced by a co-editing team of former arts editor Leona Baker and contributor Jeff Maisey, according to the Virginian-Pilot. The daily also notes that the aforementioned "higher ups" have penned a response to Robotham to run in this week's paper. "It has to do with a need for significant change," the column by publisher Colleen Nabhan and general manager Edward Power reportedly says. The paper "has experienced a graying of its audience" and must "embrace new audiences in more inventive and effective ways," they argue.
Port Folio Weekly | The Virginian-Pilot  |  08-04-2008  9:10 am  |  Industry News

Port Folio Weekly & Style Weekly Parent Co. May Go Up for Salenew

Landmark Communications, which owns those two Virginia AAN member papers, has hired JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers to "to assist in exploring strategic alternatives, including the possible sale of the company's businesses," Landmark's vice chairman tells the Roanoke Times. The company's 2006 sales figures were $1.75 billion, and it employs about 12,000 people at more than 100 publications and other media properties including The Weather Channel, the Times reports.
The Roanoke Times  |  01-03-2008  8:48 am  |  Industry News

Port Folio Weekly's Inquiry Leads to Investigation of Navy Officernew

Lt. Cmdr. John Sharpe was temporarily relieved of duty last week after a Port Folio Weekly reporter asked about Sharpe and "alleg[ed] his involvement in possible supremacist activities," the Navy Times reports.
Navy Times  |  03-12-2007  8:16 am  |  Industry News

Port Folio Weekly Has a Big Idea

Port Folio Weekly announced a "Big Idea" essay contest in their Independence Day issue, an idea inspired by Gen. Wesley Clark's speech at the 2006 AAN Convention. "Clark noted that today ... there are few if any big ideas around which the country can rally," Tom Robotham says in his Sept. 26 Editor's Note. "What we need in these dire times, it seems to me, are motivating ideas that appeal to our inherent expansiveness -- our collective and foundational belief in intellectual enlightenment, social justice and tolerance of diversity." This week's issue contains the top three submissions as well as an interview with the winner, Missy Cotter Smasal, who proposed "a Foreign Language Corps, to be sponsored by the federal government in a manner similar to university ROTC programs throughout the country. "
09-26-2006  11:51 am  |  Industry News

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