First of all, you may or may not notice, but on page 39, we've added movie listings. Now, these aren't the film times of old. Like I've told countless people complaining by phone and email, those just aren't efficient for us to do anymore accurately or on our deadline. However, we can provide a list of movies that are scheduled to be at each theater (still, check before making plans, because these things change frequently), so there they are. I still think you're better off looking up the information in digital form somewhere, but clearly the movie listings are a big part of some people's media diet, so hopefully this is a happy middle ground.
Also, this is the first week for Brian J. Pedersen's new weekly sports column. He does a great job of explaining what he's aiming to do with that space with his first entry, so check it out. I think there's a space for sports coverage beyond what the Star does with its all Wildcats-all-the-time, both in subject matter and in tone, and Brian's definitely the person for the job. I'm looking forward to what he comes up with.
Thirdly, I've noticed that there are quite a few new publications popping up around town. One of those, Edible Baja Arizona, by Weekly founder Doug Biggers, I'm actually looking forward to, but a few of the others seem generally worthless. One seems to be loaded with content paid for by contributors surrounding some listings; the other, a generally crappy looking Phoenix mag with some Tucson stuff thrown in the back. I know we have superior content than either of those two, so I'm not too worried about the competition, but we're still working on improving the Weekly on a rolling basis, adding new features and making changes to the way we present our award-winning content (seriously, we have stacks of plaques and certificates sitting around my office that we have no idea what to do with). We'll celebrate our 30th anniversary next year, so I think we've earned some credit for actually sticking around through thick and thin as an institution, but I know we can't rest on past accomplishments either.
There's more great stuff to come, I promise.
