Metro Times joins protest by alt-weeklies

WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 23, 2007) Member papers of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (aan.org) this week are providing links on their Web sites that direct their readers to the many places on the Internet where the home address of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is listed.

AAN papers, including Metro Times, are doing so to show solidarity with the Phoenix New Times, which was threatened with felony prosecution for publishing Sheriff Arpaio’s address on its Web site in 2004. After an adjoining jurisdiction declined to press charges, Arpaio’s political ally, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, convened a grand jury to "investigate" charges the paper broke the law when it published Sheriff Arpaio’s address.

Last week, Phoenix New Times’ founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin were arrested and jailed after the paper published a story about the grand jury and subpoenas they had received that demanded detailed Internet records of any person who had visited the newspaper’s Web site since 2004, as well as all notes and records from any reporter who had written about the sheriff in the preceding three years.

After Larkin and Lacey were arrested, an outpouring of shock and anger accompanied widespread media coverage of the case. The response created a groundswell of support for New Times. The charges were dropped less than 24 hours later after Thomas admitted that his office had made "serious missteps" in the case.

"The actions of Mr. Thomas and Sheriff Arpaio in this case are beyond outrageous," said AAN Executive Director Richard Karpel. "They abused their offices by engaging in Gestapo-like tactics designed to silence a newspaper that has been highly critical of them in the past."

Added AAN First Amendment Chair Tim Redmond, executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian: "Our association and its members won’t tolerate this sort of attack on the right of a member paper to publish information that is and ought to be public record."

"This was a victory for the First Amendment, the constitution and for our readers right to read our newspaper without the government spying upon them," said Larkin and Lacey in a joint statement. "As the federal press shield legislation moves from the House to the Senate, we hope people will remember what happened to reporters, editors and readers in Phoenix."

Phoenix New Times has published dozens of stories critical of both Thomas and Arpaio. In fact, the paper maintains an archive on its Web site of its coverage of Arpaio since he was elected sheriff in 1992:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/php/specialreports/index.php?page=1&report_id =576937

New Times published Arpaio’s home address in a story arguing that he abused a state law that allows law enforcement officials to keep their addresses from being made public. New Times said Arpaio used the law to hide nearly $1 million in cash real-estate transactions.

Thomas convened a grand jury to investigate the case even though Arpaio’s home address was then and continues to be easily accessible on a number of other Web sites, including the Maricopa County Recorder’s official Web site (see first link below):

http://recorder.maricopa.gov/CampaignFinance/CampFinDocsSelect.aspx?CandidateId=970003&FileYear=2004 (click "2004 Financial Disclosure Statement" for PDF)

http://www.usa-peoplesearch.com/order.aspx?city=Fountain%20Hills&st=az&fn=J oseph&mn=&ln=Arpaio&searchpID=117102576

http://www.privateeye.com/(S(4pwn0l55tzc0sqfr4yy5ju45))/Search/SearchResults.aspx?vw=people&input=name&fn=joseph&mn=&ln=arpaio&city=fountain20hills&state=AZ&criteria=joseph;arpaio;fountain%20hills;;AZ

http://www.voompeople.com/order.asp?1=JOSEPH;;MICHAEL;;ARPAIO117102576;;&2=name&3=people&4=1&5=joseph;arpaio;;fountain%20hills;;AZ;&rc=1

http://www.zabasearch.com/query1_zaba.php?sname=arpaio&state=AZ&ref=$ref&se=$se&doby=&city=&name_style=1

Arpaio continues to resist New Times’ request for information relating to his real estate holdings.

Here is the list of other AAN papers that have agreed to post these links this week on their Web sites:

Artvoice (Buffalo, NY)
Arkansas Times
The Beat (Greenville, SC)
Birmingham Weekly
Boise Weekly
Boston’s Weekly Dig
Charleston City Paper
Cincinnati
CityBeat
City Pages (Minneapolis)
Colorado Spring Independent
Dallas Observer
Houston Press
Independent Weekly (Durham, NC)
Independent Weekly (Lafayette, La.)
L.A. Weekly
Louisville Eccentric Observer
Memphis Flyer
Metro (San Jose, Calif.)
Metro (Santa Cruz, Calif.)
Metroland (Albany, NY)
Miami New Times
Monterey County Weekly
Nashville Scene
New Times Broward-Palm Beach
North Bay Bohemian
Nuvo (Indianapolis, Ind.)
OC Weekly
Philadelphia Weekly
The Pitch (Kansas City)
Portland Mercury (Portland. Ore.)
The Pulse (Chattanooga, Tenn.)
The Reader (Omaha, Neb.)
Riverfront Times (St. Louis)
San Antonio Current
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Santa Barbara Independent
Santa Fe Reporter
Scene (Cleveland)
Seattle Weekly
Seven Days (Burlington, Vt.)
SF Weekly
Shepherd Express (Milwaukee)
The Source Weekly (Bend, Ore.)
The Stranger (Seattle)
Syracuse New Times
Tucson Weekly
Urban Tulsa Weekly
The Village Voice
Westword (Denver)
Willamette Week (Portland, Ore.)

As daily newspaper readership continues to deteriorate, as radio and television audiences become progressively more fragmented, as competition for the 18- to 39-year-old demographic soars in an already cluttered marketplace, alternative newsweeklies continue to engage young, active, educated and influential readers.

Since its founding in 1978, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies has grown to include 130 free-circulation weekly newspapers throughout North America. More than 25 million print and online readers in markets as diverse as Memphis and Montreal, Pittsburgh and Pasadena, Chicago and Charlotte, rely on their local alternative newspaper for local news, political opinion and arts coverage they won’t find anywhere else.

For more information about AAN, go to aan.org.