AAN News
Village Voice Media Taps New Law Firm in Bay Guardian Suitnew
The parent company of SF Weekly and East Bay Express hired local litigation specialists Kerr & Wagstaffe to replace Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffein in the predatory-pricing lawsuit brought against those two papers by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Kerr & Wagstaffe is the third firm involved in the defense of the lawsuit, set to go to trial in mid-July, reports Legal Pad, a blog focusing on California law.
Legal Pad |
02-21-2007 1:04 pm |
Industry News
Senior Editor Leaves City Pagesnew
Britt Robson, who will leave March 1, tells the Star-Tribune his chief reasons for quitting were editor Steve Perry's recent resignation and the hiring of an editor from out of town to succeed him. "There was absolutely no pressure on me to leave," Robson says. "I just didn't want to be an unhappy, divisive force on the staff, which I would have been if I had stayed." He had spent over 10 years at the paper and was among Steve Perry's closest confidants, according to the Star-Tribune.
Star-Tribune |
02-13-2007 3:54 pm |
Industry News
More Edit-Staff Departures at Village Voice Media
The latest to leave are OC Weekly feature editor Rebecca Schoenkopf, whose Commie Girl column won last year's big-paper AltWeekly Award for best political column, and City Pages music critic Jim Walsh, who served two stints at the Minneapolis alt-weekly, the latest beginning in 2003. OC Register columnist Frank Mickadeit reports that Schoenkopf has "been ready to leave the Weekly for some time, simply because she needed a change" and that "her dream job would be editor-in-chief of an alternative weekly somewhere."
In her farewell column, Schoenkopf puts the paper's recent ownership change into context: "It could have been worse: Dean Singleton could have bought our newspaper. At least this way, we still get to call people twats." (OC Weekly music editor Chris Ziegler also left the paper, Schoenkopf notes in her column.)
OC Register | OC Weekly | St. Paul Pioneer Press |
02-01-2007 9:23 pm |
Industry News
Founding Editor of OC Weekly Steps Downnew
Will Swaim is the second Village Voice Media editor to resign this week over "philosophical differences" with the company's new owners. OC Weekly employees tell the Los Angeles Times that they were expecting the resignation, "because it was apparent that (Swaim's) autonomy to run Orange County's only alternative newspaper had eroded since it was purchased last year by the New Times publishing chain." Swaim tells the Times that his differences with the new owners were on "the business side," and did not pertain to editorial content. "They run a very complicated organization and want to have standardization across all 18 markets," he says. "I don't argue whether it's dumb or wrong. It's just not my way." CORRECTION: VVM has papers in 17 markets.
Los Angeles Times |
01-26-2007 4:03 pm |
Industry News
City Pages Names New Editornew
The Village Voice Media paper announced yesterday that Cleveland Scene managing editor Kevin Hoffman would replace Steve Perry, who resigned earlier this week. Former City Pages co-owner Tom Bartel (the brother of the paper's current publisher, Mark Bartel) tells the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he thinks Hoffman and present VVM management deserve a chance. "They've produced some terrific editors and stories over the years," Bartel says. "But anybody who comes in from out of town will have a certain learning curve. He needs to know the community he's covering."
Minneapolis Star-Tribune |
01-24-2007 1:00 pm |
Industry News
Kevin Hoffman to Edit City Pages
Village Voice Media |
01-24-2007 12:36 pm |
Press Releases
'What Happened to Our (Village) Voice?'new
That's the rhetorical question PopMatters asks in an article lamenting the "sad trajectory" of arts coverage at the paper since it was taken over by New Times. In a somewhat less-than-thorough investigation, the Web site turns to two former Voice music critics for answers. Robert Christgau says Michael Lacey is "a philistine who hates New York City” but admits that Village Voice Media's executive editor cares about writing; it's just not the kind of writing that Christgau does. Meanwhile, Eric Weisbard claims the new owners hate "what the Voice stood for," i.e., "the idea that you should write about pop music with the same depth and the same number of cultural references that you would talk about a novelist in the New York Review of Books."
PopMatters |
01-22-2007 3:10 pm |
Industry News
Man Suspended From Work for Sharing 'Ask a Mexican'new
Richard Diefenbach read Gustavo Arellano's syndicated column for the first time in the Weekly Alibi, while on vacation in Albuquerque. He was so enthused with the column -- which that week addressed readers' questions about "the Mexican love affair with chicken and similarities between Mexicans and the Irish," according to Arellano -- that when he returned to work in his hometown of Newport, Ore., he printed a copy and gave it to a Mexican-American co-worker. The following day Diefenbach was suspended from work for five days without pay, accused of racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
OC Weekly |
01-09-2007 5:13 pm |
Industry News
Pazz and Jop 'Undermined by Internet' Says NPRnew
The Morning Edition is the latest to weigh in on the battle for music-poll supremacy between The Village Voice's 32-year-old "world series for smarty-pants people," and Gawker Media's upstart Jackin' Pop, which was released Friday. NPR reports that several prominent critics, including former Voice contributor Ann Powers and The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones, won't be voting in this year's Pazz and Jop, which will be released early next month.
National Public Radio |
01-08-2007 3:17 pm |
Industry News
As Papers Consolidate, Readers Receive Less-Varied Opinionsnew
The days when every newspaper ran exclusive film criticism are over, reports Variety, with online film sites picking up the slack created by the rise of national chains and syndicated critics. The film industry's paper of record highlights the merger of New Times and Village Voice Media, which resulted in fewer independent film voices on the alternative weekly landscape. "New Times certainly did not start this fire," says Scott Foundas, movie editor at L.A. Weekly. "In the L.A. Times on a given Friday, half the reviews are reprinted from Newsday and the Chicago Tribune."
Variety |
01-03-2007 12:24 pm |
Industry News
Village Voice Releases Film-Crit Compendiumnew
Just in time for the gift-guide season, the venerable alt-weekly has released "The Village Voice Film Guide: 50 Years of Movies From Classics to Cult Hits," edited by former Voice film critic Dennis Lim. The anthology includes reviews from every era of the paper's storied history, and includes contributions by Jonas Mekas, Oliver Stone and J. Hoberman.
The Village Voice |
12-18-2006 11:04 am |
Industry News
Vaclav Havel Finally Picks Up His Village Voice Obiesnew
The first president of the Czech Republic, who won Off-Broadway's highest honor for plays he wrote in 1968, 1970 and 1984, was feted this week at New York's Public Theater. "Havel was previously unable to collect his Obie Awards in person," says the Voice, "because, following the New York opening of (his 1968 prizewinner) The Memorandum, he returned to his home in Prague, where he was almost immediately placed under house arrest by the then Soviet-controlled government of Czechoslovakia." The Voice's chief theater critic and current Obie committee chairman, Michael Feingold, presented Havel with a special certificate attesting to the three awards.
The Village Voice |
12-08-2006 11:23 am |
Industry News
Annual Pazz & Jop Poll May Have Competitionnew
For 32 years, the Village Voice's annual music poll has "enjoyed an almost unchallenged run" as the gold standard of year-end Top 10 lists, says the New York Times. But the angst created by New Times' takeover of the paper, and the ensuing departure of music critic and poll organizer Robert Christgau, has emboldened a music blog to mount a challenge to Pazz and Jop's hegemony. After Christgau turned them down, Gawker Media's The Idolator hired former Seattle Weekly music editor Michaelangelo Matos to organize the competing poll, which "will largely be modeled after Pazz & Jop," according to the Times.
New York Times |
11-30-2006 5:39 pm |
Industry News
Alt-Weekly Vet Stewart Hired as LA Weekly News Editornew
Village Voice Media has replaced news editor Alan Mittelstaedt with political columnist Jill Stewart, LAObserved reports. Editor-in-Chief Laurie Ochoa will remain at the helm of Los Angeles' largest alternative weekly, but co-managing editor Tim Ericson has been jettisoned, along with the paper's fact-checking department, a music editor and a layout artist. Ochoa announced the changes in a Wednesday afternoon staff meeting, according to the media-watching blog.
LAObserved |
11-02-2006 10:33 am |
Industry News
Boston Phoenix Editor to Lead VVM Web Operationsnew
Bill Jensen is leaving Beantown to take command of Web operations for
Village Voice Media. The math is simple: Jensen's departure is a loss for
the Phoenix and a gain for VVM. "It's always a disappointment to lose solid
talent,"says Peter Kadzis, executive editor of Phoenix Media/Communications
Group. VVM Executive Editor Mike Lacey seems to have had his sights set on
Jensen; according to the Phoenix, Jensen was offered, and declined, the job
of editing the Village Voice earlier this year. “Like Vito Corleone, Mike
Lacey must have made Bill an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Kadzis says. In a press release, Lacey and CEO Jim Larkin announce that Jensen's "arrival
coincides with a major expansion of staffing as we move to hire a new group
of dedicated Web editors and designers."
Boston Phoenix |
10-26-2006 9:40 am |
Industry News
