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."
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.
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.
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."
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 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.
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.
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.
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."
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