We don’t live here anymore.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Fewer than two years ago, WHTJ hosted a splashy kick-off party for its Terri Allard-hosted program, Charlottesville Inside-Out. Today, the public broadcasting station licensed for Charlottesville still has Allard, but the rest of its local programming has gone dormant— along with its local office space.

One of the hard-hit Community Idea Stations out of Richmond, WHTJ— which once had five employees— recently closed its office at 528 East Maint Street, across from City Hall. The payroll has shrunk to two, and they both work from home. Former general manager D.J. Crotteau left (more)

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Blogger and digital plagiarism watchdog Waldo Jaquith.
FILE PHOTO BY HOOK STAFF

Put a blog in Waldo Jaquith’s hands, even a literary magazine’s blog, and there’s no telling what can happen. Last week, the Virginia Quarterly Review employee called out Wired editor and best-selling author Chris Anderson on VQR’s blog for lifting whole passages from Wikipedia and other sources for Anderson’s new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price,” something many other reviewers, including New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, appeared not to have noticed.

The post came with a mea culpa from Anderson— he was told before-hand that his book was going to be challenged— who claimed that it was a mistake and that he  and his publisher had “forgotten” to cite the passages.

Jaquith’s post made an immediate impact, having generated 177 comments to date from people— including Anderson— arguing (more)

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Photographer Matthew Rosenberg’s image of tiny downtown music/art venue The Garage is the subject of his lawsuit.
PHOTO BY MATTHEW ROSENBERG

It was a tiny picture of a tiny music venue, and it was posted just twice on a local blogger’s site, but the aggrieved photographer who snapped it says compensation needs to be made— compensation to the tune of $385,000.

The federal lawsuit filed May 15 demands as much from gossip site cVillain.com and its owner, Kyle Redinger. The litigant, Charlottesville photographer Matthew Rosenberg, claims Redinger violated his copyright by hosting and showing the thumbnail image without permission.

“If filing a lawsuit over something so trivial is not overkill,” says veteran intellectual property lawyer Sheldon Parker, “then I don’t know what would constitute overkill.”

Parker, who is not (more)

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In its first week of sales, Parachute’s debut album Losing Sleep made it to #40 on the Billboard albums chart.
PUBLICITY PHOTO

After nearly a year of anticipation, the numbers are finally in, and a Charlottesville-based band’s debut album is officially a hit. Members of Parachute learned Thursday, May 21 that Losing Sleep entered at #40 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.

“It’s way better than we had expected,” says frontman Will Anderson. “We had a day off, so we were all in different places when we found out, and we were texting each other like crazy.”

The news comes a week after the album got an early release on the iTunes Music Store, and quickly shot to #1 on the digital vendor’s charts. This was due in part to the strength of the band’s second single “Under Control,” which iTunes offered as a free download for the week.

According to Anderson, seeing his band’s name atop of the iTunes chart was a stunning moment.

“When we went #1 on iTunes,” says Anderson, “that was a (more)

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The 2009 Emily Couric leadership scholars are: (front) Lily Erb, Tandem; Allie Cooper, Monticello High; Effie Nicholaou, Western Albemarle; Emma Yackso, winner of the $15,000 scholarship, Charlottesville High; Christina Horton, Albemarle High; (back row) Megan Thomas, Murray High; Ladi Smith, $5,000 merit award winner, St. Anne’s-Belfield; Kimberly Dozier; Devon Ryan, Miller School; Madeline Zimmer, Renaissance School, and Brea Thomas, Covenant School.
PHOTO BY MARY JOHNSON

Three years after CBS reporter and UVA alum Kimberly Dozier was seriously injured by a car bomb in Iraq, the journalist talked about her work and recovery to a crowd that included John Grisham and Congressman Tom Perriello at the May 18 Emily Couric Leadership Scholarship Awards luncheon.

“Please don’t risk my life if we’re not going to make air,” Dozier recounted her cameraman, Paul Douglas, saying. The report on what it was like for U.S. troops in Baghdad was supposed to make the airwaves on Memorial Day 2006, but a car bomb killed Douglas and soundman James Brolan, and left Dozier with her legs looking like “hamburger,” she said.

Dozier was presented the Women’s Leadership Award, which has gone to former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Caroline Kennedy, and Dozier’s CBS News colleague Katie Couric.

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