3 Rivers Music Festival is GONE!

[waccamatt]

This is your post from the Free Times thread:

It's one of those corporate "Faux Weeklies"

It's entertainment coverage is pretty good. There's a better alt weekly in town called Columbia City Paper.

I usually pick them both up but Free Times lacks the edge you hope to see in these papers.

I find the term "faux weekly" to be a rather derogatory description of the paper. Following up that statement with a link to TCP would lead someone to make the logical conclusion that you have an affiliation with that paper. I stand by my comments.

[larryfortnoy]

This is your post from the Free Times thread:

It's one of those corporate "Faux Weeklies"

It's entertainment coverage is pretty good. There's a better alt weekly in town called Columbia City Paper.

I usually pick them both up but Free Times lacks the edge you hope to see in these papers.

I find the term "faux weekly" to be a rather derogatory description of the paper. Following up that statement with a link to TCP would lead someone to make the logical conclusion that you have an affiliation with that paper. I stand by my comments.

I like Five Points Diner better than MacDonalds. Applying your logic, I now work at Five Points Diner. Thanks for the crapty job.

[waccamatt]

Free Times is a "corporate" weekly about as much as The Stae is The New York Times. Free Times was founded by local Columbians and is not owned by a corporation - yes- one that owns a whopping ONE other community weekly paper. The comparison should have been between Five Points Diner and Al Amir or Zorbas.

[larryfortnoy]

Free Times is a "corporate" weekly about as much as The Stae is The New York Times. Free Times was founded by local Columbians and is not owned by a corporation - yes- one that owns a whopping ONE other "community weekly paper. The comparison should have been between Five Points Diner and Al Amir or Zorbas.

Here's what I found on Portico Publications. I figured I'd just overwhelm you with facts since you couldn't address my dozen other points. Plus you seem to have a Free Times comparison obsession.

Portico Publications most recently used Columbia, S.C. Free Times money to aquire the Augusta Metro Spirit. A third weekly you failed to mention. Regarding the Virginia companies purchase of Free Times, Richard Karpel, executive director of the Association of Alternative Weeklies, "believes that this physically-distant purchase indicates that Portico is looking to build up a chain of weeklies."

Now more interesting is the company forcing out a partner, Hawes Spencer.

Now, here's the backstory on Spencer's leaving: Apparently Spencer was

the editorial brain of the operation and well respected. Jiranek used

C-Ville's capital to form another magazine, called Blue Ridge Outdoors,

which they ultimately sold. In 2002, the company had plans to form an

alt-weekly chain -- using the profitable C-Ville as the economic engine.

Spencer didn't like that, because they were taking money out of his

paper to buy others. That's how they eventually bought Free Times.

Spencer was pushed out due to his community newspaper approach, and later formed a competiting paper, The

Hook. See these articles:

Hawes Spencer Ousted from C-Ville

http://www.cvillenews.com/2002/01/15/hawes...ed-from-cville/

Ousted C*Ville Editor Starting New Weekly

http://www.aan.org/gyrobase/Aan/ViewArticle?oid=oid%3A6957

Media 2002: Hawes Spencer to Start New Weekly Paper

http://loper.org/~george/trends/2002/Jan/49.html

Goodbye, C-ville: Anatomy of a hostile takeover

http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2002/02...tomyOfAHos.html

The best reference is this last article, "Goodbye, C-ville: Anatomy of a

hostile takeover." Spencer's own paper called his ouster a hostile

takeover (extreme language in my opinion). In the article, the paper

includes internal workings at Portico and the alleged circumstances of

Spencer's firing.

This exposes the "corporate" attitude of the Portico Publications chain and explains why the papers they aquire end up having a watered down advertising focus.

We all love Free Times for what it once was. I'm going to forward these findings to City Paper, The Star, Black News and other locally owned media in town. They can decide if it is now a Faux alternative weekly.

[krazeeboi]

Dude, you come on here defending the City Paper like a Muslim extremist, yet you claim someone else is obssessed? This forum is not about debating newspapers, it is about discussing urban developments and other associated topics. Unless you have something positive to contribute to the Columbia subforum in this regard, I suggest you find another forum on which to go off on tangential rants.

[monsoon]

Folks please move back to the discussion of 3 Rivers Music Festival.

I have banned Larryfortnoy because he not only broke the rules, but he created the alterego colaguy1982 in an attempt to support himself in these topics. This is one thing we will not tolerate on UrbanPlanet so he is gone.