EW: First, you watch them very closely, and you watch how they allocate resources. If it’s a big story and they only have one or two people on it, sometimes we can throw everyone on it — five, six people on something — and we can beat them to big parts of a developing story. We did that with a school shooting in February, and it was a great success for us. As for breaking news? Impossible, absolutely impossible. And stupid and … insane. It’s self-flagellation to try to break news, and try to use your Web site to beat the daily. Because people aren’t going to go to Washington City Paper’s Web site for breaking news. If you come thinking you’re going to beat the Post … you’re insane. Go work in another profession. Go work for some daily, and don’t ever, ever, ever think you’re going to have success and fulfillment at an alt-weekly, because it won’t happen.

BM: There are some good alt-weeklies out there — like City Paper, The Stranger, Chicago Reader, San Francisco Bay Guardian — but there are a lot of alt-weeklies that suck. Why?

EW: First of all, I think to answer this question fairly, I first have to say that sometimes we put out stuff on the street that isn’t the greatest journalism that’s ever been written. I don’t necessarily want to say that Washington City Paper is, week in and week out, this perfect newspaper. Sometimes, we put out stinkers too. That happens in the industry.

But if you’re addressing whatever malaise might exist in the alt-weekly industry, I think that what goes on is that oftentimes the stories are very predictable. Alt-weeklies do descend from a certain tradition where it’s no surprise that the editorial is slamming Bush or endorsing Kerry or Nader. And it’s no surprise that on the gentrification issue of the day, the alt-weekly sides with the people being displaced and calls the landlord evil. And it’s no surprise that when abortion becomes an issue, that the alt-weekly is particularly snide to the right-to-lifers. I think that, if you accept your premise — which, depending on the paper, I might agree or disagree — that the worst thing that a paper can be is predictable. I think that is something that alt-weeklies are fighting continually.

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