Advocate Weekly Newspapers
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The Advocate Weekly Newspapers are four free weekly alternative newspapers in Central Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, published by New Mass. Media Inc.
The Advocate weeklies offer investigative journalism, national, state and local political coverage, commentary, and arts features and criticism, mostly from a liberal or countercultural point of view. They share some editorial content, but each has regionally focused news and opinion pieces, restaurant reviews, event listings, and advertisements. The newspapers have annual "Best Of" write-in contests, and subsequent issues that feature the winning businesses.
The Advocates accept a wider variety of advertisements than mainstream newspapers, including ads for strip clubs, erotic massage services, adult book and video stores, etc., which columnists and readers have argued conflict with the newspapers' avowed feminism.
In 1999 the owners of New Mass. Media, including founding publisher Geoffrey Robinson, sold the company to the Hartford Courant for an undisclosed sum, arguably ending its independence from mainstream media. A year later, parent company Times Mirror was bought by Chicago-based Tribune Company.
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[edit] The New Haven Advocate
The New Haven Advocate is published in New Haven, Connecticut. Circulation is about 50,000 with an actual readership of about 125,000. As of 2006, the Advocate's editor is former New Haven Register reporter Andy Bromage, and the publisher is Josh Mamis.
[edit] The Hartford Advocate
The Hartford Advocate is published in Hartford, Connecticut and has a circulation of about 55,000. The editor is Alistair Highet and the publisher is Janet Reynolds.
The Hartford Advocate was founded in 1975 to fill a void in investigative and beat reporting in the capital city of Connecticut. For example, the daily Hartford Courant did not routinely cover one of the city's largest industries, insurance. The founding editors including managing editor Dick Polman, recruited from the New London Day, and city editor Bruce Kauffman, from the Courant.
Gail Collins reported on state government and politics; she is now editorial page editor at The New York Times. Another early reporter was David Lieberman, who was later an editorial writer for the Courant and covered the media business for USA Today.
Polman left the Advocate after some five years to become a columnist at the Courant and later joined The Philadelphia Inquirer as national political correspondent. He also taught at the University of Pennsylvania. Kauffman later worked for CNN, taught at Emerson College in Boston, Morehouse College in Atlanta and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He also worked for the North County Times, one of two daily newspapers in San Diego County, California.
In a history of the alternative media, "A Trumpet to Arms," author David Armstrong described the Advocate as a bastion for the "new muckrakers." The author explored the paper's examination of the behind-the-scenes power exercised by the corporate elite in Hartford. Kauffman had reported that top banks and insurance companies, including Travelers, were funneling the bulk of city pension fund money into companies that propped up the apartheid regime in South Africa. The city of Hartford would end up divesting the South Africa-related investments.
The Advocate was sold to the parent company of the daily Hartford Courant. The forward of Polman's book, "Dateline: Connecticut," notes that he was denied permission by New Mass MediA Inc. to include samples from "Subject to Change," the column he wrote weekly for the Hartford Advocate.
[edit] The Fairfield County Weekly
The Fairfield County Weekly is a published in Bridgeport, Connecticut and distributed throughout Fairfield County with a circulation of about 33,000. The editor is Lorraine Gengo and the publisher is Joshua Mamis.
[edit] The Valley Advocate
The Valley Advocate is published in Easthampton, Massachusetts and serves the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. The Valley Advocate has a circulation of about 53,000 covering the Five College Area, the greater Springfield, Massachusetts area, and Southern Vermont. It began as an independent newspaper in 1973. The editor is Tom Vannah and the publisher is Janet Reynolds.
[edit] Reference
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Directory
