Robbins will take a position with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Continuing Studies.
The Sex-Positive Journalism Awards have announced the winners of the 2009 Sexies, the annual awards that go to stories that "improve the quality of dialogue around sex and create a more well-informed reading public." Seven Days' Judith Levine took home a first-place win in the Opinion category, where she also tied for second place with a Village Voice piece by Tristan Taormino. Amanda Hess of Washington City Paper picked up a third-place win in the Columns category for "The Sexist," while in the News/Features (Alt-Weeklies, Monthlies) category the Alibi's Marisa Demarco placed third and Rich Kane (OC Weekly) and Michael J. Mooney (New Times Broward-Palm Beach) both were named runners-up.
The new CEO of Village Voice Media announced Tuesday that Michael Cohen has been named publisher of the chain's flagship paper. In an e-mail message to Village Voice staffers, Larkin said that Cohen resigned his current position as publisher of Miami New Times and will take the helm at the Voice on Monday Jan. 30. Cohen, who has been in the alternative-weekly publishing business for 22 years, began his career in ad sales at the Baltimore City Paper in 1983 and moved to New York five years later to help launch the New York Press as its ad director. He returned to New York in 2000 to serve briefly as publisher of the Press; he also served stints as publisher of AAN member papers Fairfield County Weekly and Philadelphia Weekly. In a separate e-mail to the Voice staff, Judy Miszner announced that Tuesday was her last day as the paper's publisher. "I thank all of you for making these the 7 best years of my career," she wrote.
Richard Goldstein, an executive editor who joined The Voice in 1966, was laid off last Monday in an ongoing restructuring that has seen the departure of at least a half-dozen editorial staffers, reports The New York Times. (Goldstein says he was fired, not laid off.) Publisher Judy Miszner tells the Times that advertising "could be better," and that the layoffs are an "ongoing thing relative to the changing environment and changes in how our audience is looking for information." Editor-in-chief Donald Forst says the restructuring is "tied into our efforts going from a weekly product to, with the Web, daily journalism electronically, in which we're putting stuff up on a daily basis, sometimes on an hourly basis."
The Village Voice joins other New York media outlets in beefing up security after the attacks on the World Trade Center and anthrax scares, the New York Post reports. "We have a responsibility to keep the building as safe as possible," Voice Publisher Judy Miszner tells the Post.
