East Bay Express Publisher Jody Colley earlier this year began a campaign to encourage readers to pledge to spend $100 of their holiday shopping dollars at locally owned stores. In return for a written pledge, a reader is entered into a prize contest. The idea was picked up by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, a federation of 130 alt-weeklies, which provided a sample ad from the Express to its members. In Boston, the alt-weekly Phoenix ran the ad from the Express verbatim, not even changing the part addressed to “East Bay Express readers,” according to the Boston Weekly Dig. Boston readers might have gotten suspicious, however, when they were asked to spend $100 at locally owned stores to help “your local economy” in California.