Westword
Encyclopedia
Westword is a free alternative weekly
Alternative weekly
An alternative newspaper is a type of newspaper, that eschews comprehensive coverage of general news in favor of stylized reporting, opinionated reviews and columns, investigations into edgy topics and magazine-style feature stories highlighting local people and culture. Their news coverage is more...

 newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 based in Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

.

Westword was established independently in 1977. In 1983 it was bought by New Times Media
New Times Media
Village Voice Media is a privately held corporation headquartered in Phoenix.The company owns the Village Voice, America's oldest and largest alternative weekly newspaper, as well as LA Weekly, OC Weekly in Orange County, California, Seattle Weekly, City Pages in Minneapolis-St...

. In 2005, New Times acquired Village Voice Media, and changed its name to Village Voice Media. Westword is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
The Association of Alternative Newsmedia is a diverse group of covering every major metropolitan area and other less-populated regions of North America. AAN members have a combined weekly circulation of over 6.5 million as well as a print readership of nearly 17 million active, educated and...

 and has received several awards for its investigative reporting
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...

. Westword has several regular features focusing on local events including arts, entertainment and politics. Regular arts and music criticism includes music criticism by Dave Herrera. Westword also publishes the syndicated columns of Dan Savage
Dan Savage
Daniel Keenan "Dan" Savage is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor. Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. Its tone is frank in its discussion of sexuality, often humorous, and hostile to social conservatives, as in...

 and the cartoons of Tom Tomorrow
Tom Tomorrow
Tom Tomorrow is the pen name of editorial cartoonist Dan Perkins. His weekly comic strip This Modern World, which comments on current events, appears regularly in over 90 newspapers across the U.S. and Canada as of 2006, as well as on CREDO Action and Daily Kos, where he is its comics curator...

.

The newspaper's web site, westword.com, offers comprehensive listings of music, arts, and other events, along with restaurant and bar listings. Westword.com also has four blogs: Backbeat, a music blog; Cafe Society, about the Denver food scene; the Latest Word, a news and general-interest blog; and Show and Tell, an arts and culture blog. It also features regular nightlife and other event coverage on its slideshow page, westword.com/slideshow.

Starting with the May 21, 2009 issue, Westword is now printed in a smaller magazine style with a glossy cover. Prior to this, the weekly had always been printed in a tabloid newspaper format.

Best of Denver

Every year, Westword's staff awards hundreds of Denver-area personalities, restaurants, bars, shops, and others "Best of Denver" awards. The awards are archived on the newspaper's web site, at westword.com/bestof.

The newspaper also throws a yearly concert, the "Music Showcase", in which the competing acts from each genre perform for a crowd and attempt to win some extra votes. http://coloradorapreport.blogspot.com/2009/06/offshore-drilling-westword-music.html It also nominates an annual list of Masterminds, people whose contribution to arts and culture in the Denver area deserve special recognition. http://www.westword.com/2010-02-18/culture/celebrate-artpoia-and-westword-s-newest-masterminds/

Personalities

Patricia Calhoun is the editor-in-chief of Westword. Her column, "Calhoun," appears regularly and usually offers biting perspectives or criticisms pertaining to current events.

Kenny Be has been a cartoonist for Westword since 1982. He creates two cartoons per week: "Worst Case Scenario", a page dedicated to Denver issues; "Hip Tip" is a single frame which is published in most of the Village Voice weeklies.

Dave Herrera is the newspaper's music editor, and he writes a regular music column called "Beatdown."

Michael Paglia writes on art and architecture and is the author of a number of books including "Denver The Modern City", "The Mid-Century Modern House in Denver", "Landscapes of Colorado" and "Colorado Abstract".

Alan Prendergast often writes about crime, prisons and "death by misadventure." His coverage of the Columbine High School massacre
Columbine High School massacre
The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12...

 attracted national attention and led to first publication of pages from the journal of Eric Harris http://www.westword.com/2001-12-06/news/i-m-full-of-hate-and-i-love-it. He is the author of a true-crime book, "The Poison Tree," about the Richard Jahnke parricide case. http://www.westword.com/1997-12-11/news/taking-care-of-business

Michael Roberts is the paper's media critic, and he blogs regularly on the Latest Word. The paper's other staff writers include Joel Warner and Melanie Asmar.

David Holthouse article

Westword ran a cover story on May 13, 2004 entitled "Stalking the Bogeyman" in which the 33-year-old journalist, David Holthouse, described being molested at the age of 7 by a 14-year-old at his home in Anchorage, Alaska. The attacker was not named but a picture and other details were printed. The article told of Holthouse's recently abandoned plans to belatedly kill his now grown-up attacker: "I was going to watch him writhe like a poisoned cockroach for a few seconds, then kick him onto his stomach and put three bullets in the back of his head. This time last year I had a gun, and a silencer, and a plan" http://www.westword.com/issues/2004-07-1/news/news.html.

After the article was published, Holthouse feared retaliation and asked a friend to follow the alleged attacker. The friend was arrested on suspicion of stalking on May 29, 2004. Holthouse's arrest soon followed. "Any charges against me are essentially charges of thought crimes," he said http://www.fortmorgantimes.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E28388%257E2184150,00.html. The alleged attacker and his wife declined to press charges http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/3482069/detail.html. The article won a 2nd place in the annual awards of the Colorado Society of Professional Journalists http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3777356,00.html.

Westword published a followup story by Holthouse on July 8, 2004 in which he described his reaction upon being arrested: "I said to myself, to the walls, to no one, 'Well, isn't this a bitch? The guy who raped me when I was kid just got me arrested. I should have gone ahead and shot his ass'". Holthouse feared retaliation because "After the article came out, my mom, who still lives in Anchorage, Alaska, where the rape occurred, and from whom I inherited my taste for vendetta, mailed copies of the cover story to everyone in the man's neighborhood, along with a signed note identifying him as the unnamed molester in the story. She was a one-woman sexual-predator notification program" http://www.westword.com/issues/2004-07-08/news/news2.html.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK