Village Voice Media executive associate editor Andy Van De Voorde tells the Tennessean that the Scene's rumored financial troubles were not what led the company to sell the paper to Nashville-based SouthComm, Inc. "I have no reason to believe that anyone wasn't pleased with [the Scene] financially," he says. Van De Voorde also says that Scene editor Pete Kotz, who came to Nashville after VVM's Cleveland Scene was merged with Free Times, will leave the paper but remain in the VVM chain. Whether other staffing changes are in the works is not yet clear, though Van De Voorde notes that all Scene and Nfocus magazine employees will receive two weeks severance, plus a week of pay for every year of service and unpaid vacation time from VVM -- whether or not they keep their jobs under the new owners.
No surprise here: Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason and the company's largest creditor Atalaya Capital Management both tell the Atlanta Journal-Constitution they have high hopes for next week's auction of the company in Tampa bankruptcy court. "I think we are absolutely the best bid," Eason says. "Any bid has got to have cash, management and know-how, and be in a position to run the business and pay off debt. ... We have all of that." But Atalaya managing partner Michael Bogdan begs to differ. "We are going to come into court with a bid we believe will prevail," he says. "And if somebody starts with higher bid (sic), we are absolutely willing to raise our bid." It's expected that Atalya will bid a higher dollar figure than Eason's group, but Eason has said he will ask the judge to consider publishing expertise as part of deciding what the "highest and best" bid for the six-paper company is. The auction is slated for Tuesday, Aug. 25.
Village Voice Media today confirmed the rumors that it is selling the Nashville Scene to SouthComm, Inc. VVM will also sell Nfocus magazine to the Nashville-based media company run by former Scene publisher Chris Ferrell. SouthComm also owns AAN member LEO Weekly. The deal is expected to close this Friday, and terms of the transaction are not being divulged. MORE: See SouthComm's statement on the transaction.
That's Chicago Reader editorial intern Keith Griffith's takeaway from last weekend's AAN Writers Workshop at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. "Though I sorely needed the writing tips gleaned from the weekend's workshops, it was also great to hear how writers and editors are meeting challenges at their respective alt weeklies," he writes.
A judge ruled this week that model Liskula Cohen is entitled to learn the identity of the person who wrote the blog Skanks in NYC, which referred to Cohen as a "skank" and "ho." The judge said that the blog potentially defamed Cohen, rejecting the blogger's argument that the comments were mere opinion and hyperbole.
After running the monthly "activist publication" Green Line for seven years, Jeff Fobes launched Mountain XPress on Aug. 10, 1994. The Asheville, N.C., weekly takes a look back with a special issue featuring a timeline of milestones and commentaries from ad director James Fisher and Fobes, who discusses -- among other things -- the shift from monthly to weekly. "[It] was an astonishing experience. The pace picked up fourfold, and it never let up," he writes. "Our tiny staff lived and breathed the audacity of the effort, working for paltry pay (though we had, thankfully, closed the multiyear chapter of working for no pay)."
The paper reported this morning that it has called off this year's Detour Festival. "Call it festival fatigue," music editor Randall Roberts writes. "Blame the economy, the industry, the biz, the Powers That Be, the health care system, or the glut of afternoon-into-evening music events." Roberts reports that there are rumors of "a different kind of musical event for the fall, to take place one of the city's gorgeous open-air facilities."
A few days after Byrd and Melanie Billings were murdered in their Florida home in early July, Independent News publisher Rick Outzen ran an exclusive on his blog disputing the state attorney's version of events and suggesting the murders may have been a contract killing. Despite the story being disputed by competing news outlets and other individuals, the local sheriff is now investigating the claim, saying that many of Outzen's sources have been correct. Outzen, whose Pensacola weekly has applied for AAN membership a few times and is a familiar face at AAN conventions, tells the New York Times that he feels vindicated, and his work has led to an assignment from The Daily Beast and praise from local officials. "I don't always agree with him, but he is the conscience of the community," the chairman of the Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce says. "People have come to trust that Rick's going to be out there, pushing us in ways sometimes we're not comfortable with."
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