The Alphaville Herald

Herald Announces New Editorial Board

by Alphaville Herald on 12/10/06 at 10:01 am

It is with great pleasure that the Herald announces its new editorial board, designed to keep the paper just as readable as before and in addition to make it more editor-friendly. Specifically, Herald Founding Editor Urizenus Sklar will now have even more time to chill on the Herald yacht, and Herald Editor in Chief Walker Spaight will be able to hold even longer, more lavish soirees at the Herald loft in Brooklyn.

Recruited to head up the editorial board as Managing Editor is Herald sports and political correspondent Pixeleen Mistral. Pix will be taking over many responsibilities from Walker, who has been with the paper for almost two years and will remain as Editor in Chief. In addition, fashion editor Matthias Zander, having not been heard from in some time, has been returned to the closet. Founding Editor Urizenus Sklar remains, as ever, Editor Emeritus and Original Virtual Muckraker.

Herald staffers were overjoyed to hear that Pixeleen would be taking a more active role in the management of the publication she has already breathed new life into in recent weeks. Reached in the bunker beneath his 14th-century palace in Sintra,
Portugal, Herald founder Urizenus Sklar was overcome with pride: “Pixeleen stands in that proud tradition of journalists extending from Murrow to Drudge to Spaight,” he said by carrier pigeon. “I’m confident that she will continue that trajectory, bringing fairly unbalanced virtual news about Second Life to both avatars and meatspace denizens alike.”

Pix has been a Second Life resident for just over a year. After flunking out of TeaZers University — twice — she discovered that professional students in the metaverse are very poorly paid, but a promising career as a camp-chair sitter was cut tragically short when the Lindens removed the dwell subsidy. Pixeleen eventually turned to professional SL sailboat racing, and founded Vagabonds Yacht Club in December 2005. She recently competed in the Second Life Sailing Federation Cup.

Pix admires the writing of Maureen Dowd and the late Hunter S. Thompson — though nobody would guess that by reading her work. On a more personal note, Pixeleen raises pet elephants and mastodons in Second Life. In a dispatch from the Herald cabin high in a snow sim that shall remain nameless, Pixeleen was quoted as saying, “I look forward to maintaining the high editorial standards of the Herald and keeping the paper always fairly unbalanced.”

As Managing Editor, Pix will be responsible for recruiting new writers, so if you have a good idea for a story, get in touch with her by Instant Message in-world. Advertisers can contact Pix or Walker. We could use some in-world distribution, as well, if someone like that wants to drop an IM on Pix. In the meantime, we continue to police the metaverse for news good, bad and ugly and remain, as ever . . .

Always Fairly Unbalancedly yours,
Walker Spaight
Editor-in-Chief
Second Life Herald