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Thread: Why no alternative weekly newspaper in Buffalo?

  1. #1
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    Why no alternative weekly newspaper in Buffalo?

    What's a weekly alternative newspaper? Most large cities have 'em ... weekly alternative newspapers aimed at the college-educated Generation X and Y crowd, with a liberal editorial slant, decent investigative journalism; extensive schedules of local happenings; comics like This Modern World and Tom Tomorrow; restaurant, theater and movie reviews; and some very interesting advertising in the back.

    (The definition of a weekly freesheet does NOT include regular weekly suburban newspapers like the Amherst Bee or dat der Chickatawarsaw Times, Pennysavers, Thrifty Nickel-type ad rags, activism/socialist worker-type publications, college newspapers, top-of-the-cigarette-machine-at-the-gin-mill entertainment listing publications, ethnic/race/religion based publications like the Challenger and Pol-Am Journal, and the like.)

    Here's a few links from a few freesheet Web sites.

    Pitch (Kansas City) - http://www.pitch.com
    Westword (Denver) - http://www.westword.com
    Willamette Week (Portland) - http://www.wweek.com
    Orlando Weekly (Orlando) - http://www.orlandoweekly.com
    Now (Toronto) - http://www.nowtoronto.com
    City Paper (Washington) - http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com
    Reader (Chicago) - http://www.chireader.com
    Creative Loafing (Atlanta) - http://www.creativeloafing.com
    Seattle Weekly (Seattle) - http://www.seattleweekly.com

    I think Buffalo, New York is the largest metro area in the US without a true weekly alternative newspaper. A few might say "what about Artvoice?", but that publicaton contains no investigative journalism, very little news, and the content is usually limited to what's new in the local arts and gay/lesbian scenes.

    The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies says "Artvoice has cornered the Buffalo market by sticking to its forte of arts and entertainment coverage." Artvoice is really just a hipper version of the top-of-the-cigarette-machine-at-the-ginmill publications that just contain ads for Canadian strip joints, and mullet bands playing in suburban sports bars ... IMHO, it's not a real alternative weekly.

    Please, no editorializing about the typically liberal bias of the alternative newsweeklies. I'd just like to know why Buffalo doesn't have a REAL weekly alternative newspaper, while cities that are much smaller have 'em. Is it that Buffalo is considered so excruiatingly unhip and blue-collar that it can't support a real alternative newsweekly?

  2. #2
    Member Curmudgeon's Avatar
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    you should include one of my favorites:

    http://www.tucsonweekly.com

    truly rabid political discourse for sure!
    Data is not the plural of Anecdote.

  3. #3
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    Most likely it's because there is no real news in Buffalo...
    The Best the Buffalo News can do is print the same old stories every day just cut & paste the paragraphs arround...
    Spread stories that are untrue and a totaly biased point of view.

    Invesigative stories would be gerat.
    Corruption, scandles, wrong doings. Things like that need to get out. Unfortunatly the leadership in WNY simply denies and covers up everything. Meaning follow up stories would be next to impossible untill the "good" people can speak out with out fearing thier jobs, life, family and general well being isnt in danger.

    Its all about "If you give me an interview i'll make you look good".

  4. #4
    Member Curmudgeon's Avatar
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    Spread stories that are untrue and a totaly biased point of view.

    I tihnk the BuffNews does a great job. Give us an example of an untrue and/or biased story.
    Data is not the plural of Anecdote.

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    I dont think the paper should endorse people in general. They should be neutral and just report the facts and allows the people to decid.

  6. #6
    sbGUY27
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    A news paper is always going to back a liberal. The media sees them as the defenders of the first amendment. Not that is really pertains to local govt. But the journalists tend to be liberals them selves, passionate over the poor saps they are telling the story about thinking that what ever they print will have some great impact on society.

    This is just what I percive of news papers(or any main stream media). How many of them actually lean toward the conservative ? Wall street journal, is the only one I can think of.

  7. #7
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    Did anyone read the part where I said ...


    Please, no editorializing about the typically liberal bias of the alternative newsweeklies.


    Guess not.

    This post is drifting way off topic. Mods, please close it.
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  8. #8
    sbGUY27
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    No I don't think you get what you have said to WNY. Being from mo.

    We have plenty of alt press. That is the name of one alt press. has editorials that are liberaly slanted to x & y. There is another, I belive it is called Blue Dog or something to that effect. That one is very very slanted toward liberal X & Y.

    Well the reason that we do not have 2 news papers is that the other went out of business a long time ago. It was an even crapier version of what we have now. Or was it that it slanted the other way. Who knows out there ? I am not really old enough to remember that paper. Only heard what the older folks said about it.

  9. #9
    Tony Fracasso - Admin
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    Older folks? hmmm

    Well it seems a lot of the smaller papers seem slanted to one topic. They don't acutally have sections as the news does, but then again a lot of the news is written from out of town. If we were going to make a local content newpaper in direct competition to the news what type of sections would people want to read?

  10. #10
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    Originally posted by sbGUY27
    No I don't think you get what you have said to WNY. Being from mo.
    [ot]

    Being from Missouri?

    Ahem. Born and raised in Buffalo. Grew up in the Kensington area ... you know, one of those city neighborhoods that recently completed its transition into a ghetto. Moved away when I was 23, but came back a few years later for grad school. Left again, because there are no jobs in my profession. I'm home a couple of times a year, and almost all my relatives are in the Buffalo area.

    [/ot]

    BTW, how does Alt Press compare to the other alternative freesheets? It doesn't. Alt press is an activist publication, more like Socialist Labor Worker's World Press Weekly than Artvoice.

    I guess Artvoice is moving closer to the norms of most major city alternative weeklies, but it still has a long way to go IMHO. Nothing wrong with AV, but there's still far more "art" than "voice."

  11. #11
    sbGUY27
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    The one free weekly that I mentioned Blue Dog press. (I believe that is what it is called) does do alot of investigative reporting. And is all local. I didn't like it though. Does too much Jim Pitts backing.

  12. #12
    Tony Fracasso - Admin
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    A news paper shouldn't back anyone. JUST THE FACTS GOOD AND BAD. Example, Jim pitts might have some good point and bad points. A paper shouldn't just nail the bad ones or good ones only. You let your readers decid. Perhaps the bad points are not as bad as all the good points they might have.

  13. #13
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    ?????

    Can any of these papers be found for sale in WNY? I'd like to look into how they are...

    bf

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