EVT CLOSING AT THE END OF THE YEAR
The East Valley Tribune had tried slashing staff and even cutting publication to three days a week, but was finally forced to give up, the paper’s publisher told staffers today, according to Heat City.
The paper is owned by the Freedom chain, based in Orange County, California, which is in bankruptcy.
The closing makes the Tribune the second Arizona newspaper to shutter this year. In May, the state’s oldest newspaper, the Tucson Citizen, was shut down by its owner, Gannett. The Citizen has since become a local blogging website for the media chain.
“This is probably the most difficult decision a company can make,” Freedom CEO Burl Osborne said in a news release. “But ultimately, after considering all available options, this is the best alternative for our company.” LINK: Nick Martin Heat City
The paper won a Pulitzer Prize this year for its lacerating series on Joe Arpaio, “Reasonable Doubt.”
3:15 PM
Installing a major new work at the Phoenix Art Museum
PHXated went down to the Phoenix Art Museum today to see the final laps of a three-day marathon of art installation in the contemporary wing.
The work is Peter Wegners “Guillotine of Shade, Guillotine of Sunlight.” Here’s a shot of how it looked as of about 8:30 this a.m.:
This is just one side of it: The work consists of two walls, each fronted with colored card stock—no fewer than 1.4 million individual cards set upright and perpendicular against the walls. A total of nearly three dozen people have been working on the piece since Monday.
Wegner achieves the spectacular color effect by slowly altering the ratio of red to yellow cards in each successive row.
The cards are specially cut to hang on brackets:
Each row uses four boxes of cards; there are 22 rows on each wall, or 44 total, meaning 176 boxes, if I’m doing the math correctly. Peter Nelson, who with Adan Mendoza is in charge of the installation, told me he figured the boxes were 80 to 100 pounds each … meaning the whole thing might weigh more than seven tons.
Indeed, the wall itself is 18 inches thick; Sara Cochran, the museum’s contemporary art curator, said the museum considers the work permanent.
Here’s the other side:
Peter Wegner’s web site is here, incidentally. And here’s a pretty good interview with him.
The work will debut before the public Dec. 4, which is not only First Friday but the museum’s 50th anniversary. Wegner’s piece is one of more than fifty new works donors have come together to give the museum for the occasion, all of which will be on display for the first time that day.
Cochran pointed out one other new work, a large-scale painting by Kehinde Wiley, from a series on young men from the favela slums in Brazil posed in heroic positions taken from famous works of art in that country. Here’s a detail of it:
12:00 AM
Is the Cronkite School's "Meet the Press" night with Joe Arpaio going to be a zoo?
As you might know, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is going to be interviewed by three journalism professors onstage at the Cronkite School on Central at 7 p.m. Monday. The event is looking more and more like it’s going to be a spectacle.
First, a bunch of misinformed ASU students have decided that, since audience members don’t get to question Arpaio at the panel, the school is somehow giving him a platform to spread his views unchallenged.
The students are planning a protest outside the event.
But as the title of the session—"Meet the Press"—makes clear, the point is to have the sheriff questioned closely by some informed professionals.
It’s uncool to say it in this Age of Everyone’s a Journalist, but this serves the public a lot better than having a bunch of Arpaio’s opponents declaiming at him from a microphone. The students should shut up and come watch the session. If it turns out to be filled with lobbed softballs, then they can protest.
(By the way—Stephen Lemons notes here that CBS 5 has a new investigative report on Arpaio scheduled to run tonight at 10 p.m.)
Now the Sheriff Joe contingent is getting into the act, too. Below is a press release I just got from the Phoenix Area Tea Partyers. (Note the slur on the students half-way down.)
Looks like Monday is going to be quite a scene:
Time: November 30, 2009 from 7pm to 7pm
Location: First Amendment Room-Second Floor
Organized By: American Citizens United
Event Description:
This is an event I saw posted on Resistnet and thought our group may be interested.
American Citizens United is organizing a rally in front of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.
There is a great push from the Hispanic students of Journalism (some of them children of illegals and others illegals themselves).
They have been encouraged by “La Raza” and other local pro-amnesty organizations to go into journalism so they can have an influence on public opinion. And you can guess what opinion they want to change to get amnesty.
Please keep it orderly, no yelling or name calling. Resist the anger we all feel when our country and those who protect it get attacked. We must remain civilized to be credible.
12:00 AM