Village Voice Media paid NT Media more than $1 million to close New Times Los Angeles, sources tell the Los Angeles Times. New Times paid VVM a lesser amount to shutter Cleveland Free Times, the daily reports. An anti-trust lawyer says the transaction, negotiated quietly over the past three months, "could raise rather interesting antitrust issues."
Eric Broder, managing editor at the Cleveland Free Times, which turns 10 this week, remembers a time when the paper could hardly fill ad space. "The issue is 24 pages, consisting mainly of editorial. You don't want that. You want ads in there, and plenty of 'em. But this was the first issue. It's tough enough to sell ad space for a publication, and tougher yet for one that doesn't exist." Broder reflects on the last decade of a paper that was one business deal away from never happening.
Doug Clifton, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, says a recent Cleveland Free Times column "can charitably be called a total fabrication." David Eden, editor in chief of the Free Times, had written that Plain Dealer "Publisher Alex Machaskee offered up [Auxiliary Bishop James] Quinn's head on a platter to Clevelanders as a smokescreen to save the neck of Bishop Anthony Pilla, a man he favors." Not so, Clifton says.
Cleveland Free Times Publisher Matt Fabyan says he’s “jazzed” that native son David Eden has come on board as editor in chief. Eden has been busy his first weeks on the job, dealing with a redesign and a new job at the same time. Eden has 15 years experience at major dailies such as the Dallas Times Herald, The Minneapolis Star and the Detroit News, as well as TV experience on PBS. “Good stories told well,” sums up his philosophy.
Lisa Chamberlain has been let go as editor-in-chief of the Cleveland Free Times and has gone to work for an Ohio congressman. Publisher Matt Fabyan says the decision was his. The Free Times is conducting a national search for a replacement. In the meantime, Don Forst, editor-in-chief, of The Village Voice will be spending three days a week in Cleveland to help put out the paper.
The Cleveland Free Times' pick of Rep. Gary Condit, R-Calif., as Man of the Year wins praise from Al Kamen of The Washington Post. Kamen says Free Times "got it right" because the selection "should be given to someone who kept the country enthralled for much of the year." Even after Sept. 11 should have wiped Condit off the radar, Condit "was determined not to cede the front page to Osama." Lisa Chamberlain, editor of the Free Times, says in an editorial about the choice, "Gary Condit is the quintessence of a gluttonous society operating without fear or consequence, content to distract itself with inanities."
