Orlando Weekly  Orlando Weekly is a liberal progressive alternative newsweekly distributed in the Greater Orlando area of Florida. Every Thursday, 40,000 issues of the paper are distributed to more than 1,100 locations across Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. "Orlando Weekly" organizes an annual feature Best of Orlando issue that features the best Orlando has to offer in dining, music and nightlife, arts and culture, goods and services. Each year readers vote in the paper's poll to vote for their favorite Orlando restaurants, bars, boutiques, museums, local celebs and more. The paper also publishes an annual dining guide called "BITE", which features capsule reviews of hundreds of area restaurants, and an "Annual Manual", an insider's guide to the region. The paper was founded in the 1980s as the "Orange Shopper". It was purchased by the Toronto Sun, which changed its name to the "Weekly" and transformed it into a tabloid publication. The "Weekly" was later sold to the Detroit-based Alternative Media Inc., a publisher of alternative newsweekly Detroit "Metro Times." Co-founder of Alternative Media Inc., Ron Williams, transformed the paper into not just a tabloid but an alternative news source dedicated to investigative journalism. In 1997, Alternative Media Inc. also purchased the San Antonio Current; by 1998, the company was entertaining multiple offers for its stable of weeklies. In 1999, the papers were purchased by Times-Shamrock Communications. In 2013, Times-Shamrock sold the paper to Euclid Media Group.  2018 AAN LGBT Coverage 1st PLACE: Orlando Weekly: By night, Orlando's drag queens entertain the masses. By day, they lead the fight for LGBTQ rights by Monivette Cordeiro Arts Criticism 2nd PLACE: Orlando Weekly: (I; II; III) by Jessica Bryce Young, Richard Reep INNOVATION / FORMAT BUSTER 1st PLACE: Orlando Weekly: Florida Film Fest/420 Issue by Chaya Av, Chris Tobar Rodriguez, Jessica Bryce Young  2017 AAN LGBT Coverage 2nd PLACE: Orlando Weekly: Pulse In Memoriam: Remembering the Orlando 49 (I; II; III; IV; V) by Monivette Cordeiro Film Criticism 1st PLACE: Orlando Weekly: Film Criticism (I; II; III) by Thaddeus McCollum Illustration 1st PLACE: Orlando Weekly: Heavy is the Head by Samantha Shumaker Photography 2nd PLACE: Orlando Weekly: Pulse Photographs by Monivette Cordeiro  2014 AAN Arts Criticism 1st Place: Malick SidibÃ©; I Believe in You; and And Every Day Was Overcast by Jessica Bryce Young, Orlando Weekly  2013 AAN Breaking News 3rd Place: Sick of It (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5) by Billy Manes, Orlando Weekly  2012 AAN Special Topic: Economic Equality 2nd Place: Bare Minimum by Jeff Gore, Orlando Weekly  2010 AAN Illustration First Place: Orlando Weekly, Fringe Free-For-All by Jeff Drew Arts Criticism Third Place: Orlando Weekly, Ecstatic Transformations and Summer Studies by Jessica Bryce Young   2009 AAN First Place: Orlando Weekly, Might Makes Right by Jeffrey C. Billman   The paper has been historically critical of anti-homeless laws passed in Orlando, including a controversial city law that prohibits advocates for the homeless from feeding large groups of people in public spaces within two miles of Orlando's City Hall without a permit.