In a Dec. 31 memo to all Village Voice Media staffers, CEO Jim Larkin and executive editor Michael Lacey say "this year we have found it necessary to make staff reductions and have placed all staff openings on hold." The memo also details "additional measures" being taken by the company to weather the current economy storm. All VVM senior managers and officers (including Larkin and Lacey) are taking 15 percent pay cuts, all publishers and editors are taking 10 percent pay cuts, and VVM is suspending its match into the company's 401(k) plan. MORE: Westword loses three editorial staffers, The Pitch lays off several, City Pages parts ways with two, and New Times Broward-Palm Beach eliminates several positions.
Responding in part to rumors circulating on a Denver website that Village Voice Media is on the brink of collapse, president and COO Scott Tobias talks to Westword's Michael Roberts about how the company's 15 papers are faring. Tobias says the company as a whole remains profitable and any talk of insolvency is hogwash, but concedes that times are tough. "Are we soft?" he asked. "No question. We go as our local mom and pops go, and our local mom and pops are having a hard time." He also talks about the company's new "uberblogger" strategy, which started with Roberts in Denver. One staff member at each paper is now being tasked with writing a handful of blog posts each day and editing and processing blog posts by other staffers and freelancers. Tobias says the focus on daily content is part of a transition "from a print product to a web platform with a print piece."
SelectAlternatives has released a study of 15 papers using its personals/social networking software comparing Jan.-Oct. 2008 against Jan.-Oct. 2007. The study found that total revenues are up 8 percent; personals revenues are up 16 percent; and adult Revenues are down five percent. Web traffic also saw significant increases, with total page views increasing 12 percent, to 60.7 million in '08.
In a video interview from last month's Digital Hollywood conference, Village Voice Media director of web and digital operations Bill Jensen tells Vator TV's Ezra Roizen about how VVM has stepped up its game online. "The key is ... we had to go daily," Jensen says. "That was the biggest challenge ... changing the culture to go from weekly to daily." He says that each VVM paper now has about 30 pieces of daily content going up on its site, in addition to the weekly content being created for the paper.
Former stripper Michelle Peacock was exonerated by a jury of all charges on Tuesday, the Nashville Scene reports. Peacock is seeking at least $25,000 in compensatory and punitive damages from reporter P.J. Tobia, the Scene, and its parent company in a defamation suit over an October 2007 story which cited an arrest report detailing the alleged prostitution.
Tim Nelson, the Democrat challenging Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, is running a radio ad accusing Thomas of ordering the October 2007 arrests of Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey because they reported in Phoenix New Times that they had been served a sweeping subpoena from a special prosecutor demanding information about the paper's online readers, Editor & Publisher reports. The ad says Thomas is responsible for "arresting journalists in the dark of night in front of their families because of what they published," and accuses Thomas of using KGB tactics. (New Times reports that Thomas tried to get the commercial pulled from local airwaves.) "Make no mistake about it: the New Times subpoenas and arrests were a massive abuse of power and the public trust," Nelson said at a press conference yesterday. "They have brought ridicule to our county and its justice system."
Columbia Journalism Review assistant editor Jane Kim claims in a blog post that "one thing that was sorely lacking from the past two weeks of convention spotlighting was good alt weekly coverage." She then uses a couple of blog features from convention host-city papers Westword and City Pages to prove the "sad results" of "consolidation of the alt weeklies under VVM." In the comments section, Westword editor Patricia Calhoun argues that staff cartoonist Kenny Be, whose "Delegating Denver" series provided grist for Kim's critique, is "the town's best political columnist," adding that "to quote lines without the context of the artwork is hardly fair" when criticizing a cartoon. AAN executive director Richard Karpel, meanwhile, points out that both papers broke significant convention-related news prior to the conventions, and that several dozen other alt-weeklies had folks on the ground during the confabs. "It seems clear from the tone of this piece that Kim went in with a set of preconceived ideas -- the all-too-easy meme that corporate ownership leads to homogenization -- and wasn't going to let the facts get in her way at 4:42 p.m. on a Friday," City Pages' editor-in-chief Kevin Hoffman adds. Lastly, Village Voice Media executive associate editor Andy Van De Voorde takes Kim to task for "focusing on 'the various shades of Banana Republic grey' worn by the Palins" in her own work during the conventions, while City Pages reporters were arrested, roughed up, and pepper-sprayed as "a direct result of their decision to actually go out and cover news."
Six more AAN members have joined Ruxton and industry veteran Yolanda Luszcz was promoted to head the national advertising agency's burgeoning digital network, according to a press release issued this morning. The Shepherd Express, the Memphis Flyer and Gambit Weekly have all chosen Ruxton to represent them for national sales in both print and digital mediums, while Boise Weekly, Seven Days and Isthmus have joined the Ruxton Digital Media Network (RDMN) for non-exclusive representation of their digital products. Ruxton has also created a Publishers Advisory Committee (PAC) for RDMN, "to ensure that Ruxton's publisher partners are fully vested in the rapidly changing world of digital marketing and advertising." The first elections for PAC reps will be the week of September 15, and the PAC's first meeting will be October 23 in Houston.
The three New Mass. Media papers -- Hartford Advocate, Fairfield County Weekly and New Haven Advocate -- and the one former member of the chain -- Valley Advocate -- have signed on to use SelectAlternatives' local personals/dating software, according to a press release. That brings the total number of AAN members using SelectAlternatives to 25.
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