Austin’s alternative weekly celebrates a decent landmark in an era when you still here the pundits chant “print is dead.” I’ve had my differences of opinion with the Chronicle over the years but I’d rather read it than the lame, developer-biased Austin American-Statesman, a small piece of the Cox Media empire. As long as this weekly doesn’t print the TV listings and comics, then Austin’s poor excuse for a daily paper will retain its smug, status quo position.
Since it is based in Austin and an “alternative” paper, the Chronicle is obviously part of the Green, Liberal (in Texan, “Librul”), Leftist, Birkenstock-wearing, soy-latté drinking, tax-and-spend, anti-growth, always angry, irrational Bush-hating, so on -conspiracy. You get the idea which direction the articles lean. Somewhere between Mother Jones and AdBusters yet it’s enough to constantly annoy my more conservative friends in the Austin area. They do a better job covering the City Council, local issues and state government than the commercial media too.
Beyond its political columnists or hard news, the rest of this weekly is pretty useful with its more in-depth reviews of books, films, music, concerts, theater and interviews. I have had some bones to pick with them at times; I don’t think everything made in Austin is always fantastic, especially Richard Linklater’s movies and half of the bands that made it nationally (Vallejo, Poi Dog Pondering and Retarded Elf, BOR-ING). Their story about the uneven sentences given to drug offenders in Williamson County (whites received probation, blacks received jail time) turned out to be sloppy too after quizzing my friend Mark about it when he was with the DA’s office. It wasn’t as egregious as the So-Called Liberal Media’s coverage on everything else and Mark’s explanation was very damning of Williamson County’s law enforcement (when the police make errors with warrants, probation is usually the best the DA can do). I also don’t follow their political endorsements to the letter either but I still feel they’re more sincere than the Statesman’s hypocritical pontificating.
It’s not like Madison, WI’s The Onion or NYC’s Village Voice but it definitely reflects the character of inner Austin. May it go on for another 100 years with its listings of upcoming concerts, Jim Hightower columns and being a continuous thorn in the side of the various complacent, political powers of Texas, aka the National Laboratories for Bad Ideas, to borrow a phrase from Molly Ivins.