Information AboutNewsarama |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT NEWSARAMA | |
| comics-related websites | |
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| entertainment websites | |
| publications established in 1995 | |
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''Newsarama'' is an American Webzine that publishes News , Interviews and Essays about the American Comic Book industry. In addition, the site hosts an Internet Forum for Comic-book fans. The site's main page is updated with new material throughout the day. HISTORY ''Newsarama'' began in Summer 1995 as a series of Internet Forum postings on the Prodigy comic-book message boards by fan Mike Doran . In these short messages. Doran shared comic-book news items he had found across the World Wide Web . As these postings became more regularly and widely read, he gave them the title "Prodigy Comic Book Newswire". In January 1997, Doran began to post a version of the column, titled "The Comics Newswire", on Usenet 's various rec.arts.comics communities. The name of the column evolved to "The Newswire" and then "CBI Newsarama" before finally becoming simply "Newsarama" in 1998. The postings quickly became popular, as the speed of reporting on the Internet meant that Doran could break stories faster than most other comic book news sources, which appeared in printed publications which had to be fully edited weeks before they were released. By the time other online comics journalists came on the scene, "Newsarama" had become an established brand and market leader. Although the column in its earliest forms reported both news and rumors, it later adopted a standard journalistic news approach. Doran's postings left Usenet in 1998, becoming a "Newsarama" column on such websites as Mania.com , AnotherUniverse.com and Fandom.com (all defunct as of 2007) and Comicon.com before becoming a semi-autonomous site — Newsarama.com, hosted by Kevin Smith 's ViewAskew.com network of sites — in August 2002. Three months later, Doran left ''Newsarama'' — by now a webzine — to take a staff position at Marvel Comics . Matt Brady , a writer who had written extensively for the site, took over. Doran later returned to working at ''Newsarama'', with Brady continuing as primary writer. The site left the ViewAskew.com network and became independent in early April 2006. ''Newsarama'' has been quoted as a source of comics news by the mainstream media, including '' lists it as a research resource in the field of comics. 1 ''Newsarama'' maintains a registered-member forum, talk@Newsarama, with over 25,000 registered users. Forum.newsarama.com Member List COLUMNISTS Marvel Comics Editor-in-chief Joe Quesada 's column "Joe Fridays" (renamed "New Joe Fridays" in 2006 as a joke regarding Marvel's penchant for relaunching titles with the prefix "new") appears weekly. DC Comics editor Michael Siglain 's contributed the weeklhy "5.2 About 52 ", and in 2007, DC executive editor Dan Didio announced he would write a column similar to "New Joe Fridays", focusing on the series ''Countdown''. Other comics professionals and journalists who have contributed to Newsarama include Chris Arrant , Troy Brownfield , Charles Brownstein , Joe Casey , Alan David Doane , Eric Adams , Steve Fritz , Steve Ekstrom , Joanna Estep , Brian Hibbs , Benjamin Ong Pang Kean , J. Michael Straczynski , Sarah Edmunds , Paul Jenkins , Geoff Johns , Shelby Edmunds , Jim Lee , Vaneta Rogers , Rick Remender , Ryan McLelland , Stuart Moore , Tracy Edmunds , Mike San Giacomo , Dirk Manning / Aaron Weisbrod and Brian Wood . Regular columns include "Animated Shorts" (by Steve Fritz), "Journey into Comics" (by Mike San Giacomo), "Tilting at Windmills" (by Brian Hibbs), "Your Manga Minute" (by Troy Brownfield and others), "Super-Articulate" (by Brownfield, The Rev. O.J. Flow, and Jim Beard)," Best Shots" (by reviewers from ShotgunReviews.com), "Justice Socializing" (by Brownfield and Geoff Johns), "Your Indy Weekly" (by Ryan McClelland), and "All-Ages Reads" (by Tracy Edmunds). CRITICISM The most persistent criticism of the Newsarama has come from Rich Johnston , a frequent poster in the news and Talk@ sections of the site http://www.newsarama.com/forums/member.php?u=17016 and a rival comic book industry columnist whose career has developed parallel to that of Newsarama. Johnston, whose own methods have been criticized by Newsarama's Mike Doran in the past http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/c2bcebabdf296870?hl=en& http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.dc.universe/msg/5903fbeab1cbd841?hl=en has repeatedly used his columns to comment on the site http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg&article=1450 http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg&article=1388 http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg&article=1529 and has suggested in the past that Newsarama has an inappropriately close relationship to some of the major American comic book publishers. http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg&article=1490 http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg&article=1543 One incident that has been cited by Johnston involved Newsarama's coverage of a Marvel Comics publicity stunt which sought to briefly mislead comic book fans. While publicizing a new series in 2001 Marvel announced that they had uncovered a previously forgotten character, '') reported on the story and quoted from the release without criticizing or challenging its claims, despite the fact that the reporter, Mike Doran , apparently knew that those claims were false. http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/71e953b2365aeee2?hl=en& http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/e7baf50b39778ca6?hl=en& Johnston then criticized Newsarama and the other news outlets involved for publishing information they knew to be intentionally misleading without comment http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/rage/9613518655859.htm http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/03a9ab993007ef0d?hl=en& http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/aac61a7a6dc1c616?hl=en& and this prompted a vigorous defense of Newsarama's coverage from Doran and his colleagues who pointed out that their reporting was technically accurate http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/2509f83802d6a4a4?hl=en& http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/55533d6e370d639f?hl=en& http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/daf9be0f06026b7b?hl=en& and insisted that readers did not require their guidance to see through the deception. http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/71e953b2365aeee2?hl=en& http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/e7baf50b39778ca6?hl=en& In November 2005 The Comics Journal published a study of Internet comic book industry news sources by journalist Michael Dean which evaluated Newsarama's journalistic performance. http://www.tcj.com/272/n_online.html The study praised the site for the depth of coverage provided in some articles but also criticized its reliance on press releases and the "softness" of the questions asked in its interviews. Dean also focused on one story in particular " DIAMOND CHANGES THRESHOLDS" by Matt Brady. http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=43699 Though he found that the piece qualified as "journalism," Dean also found that it "contained factual inaccuracies, failed to get multiple points of view and sucked up to its corporate subject" (the Brady story itself was eventually corrected of its factual inaccuracies by its author after Rich Johnston and others pointed out the errors). AWARDS The site has been the recipient of a number of awards and award nominations, including:
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