According to CL senior writer Steve Fennessy, Mike Sigman (pictured) and CEO Ben Eason "couldn't agree on a timetable for improvements." Eason will step in as interim publisher for the rest of the year.
Creative Loafing Inc. CEO Ben Eason informs us that he has named Michael Sigman to head the chain's flagship paper in Atlanta. Sigman worked at LA Weekly for 18 years, first as general manager, then later as president and publisher of both LA and OC Weekly, before leaving parent company Village Voice Media in Jan. 2002. Following his departure from VVM, Sigman took over as president of MajorSongs, the publishing house of his late father, the songwriter Carl Sigman, and issued a limited-edition box set of recordings of some of his father's songs.
Readers of Gambit Weekly, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Miami New Times, Weekly Planet (Tampa), Weekly Planet (Sarasota), Folio Weekly and Orlando Weekly have lately seen Mother Nature at her worst. Distributed in areas affected by the hurricanes that have pounded Florida and surrounding states since August, these alt-weeklies have come out on schedule -- thanks to determined staffers and contingency plans.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley calls a column by LA Weekly's Harold Meyerson and a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal written by New Times' Michael Lacey "self-interested positions staked out by those who are directly affected by this investigation." Cooley claims he reads LA Weekly "because it is a valuable news organ" and says New Times LA was "occasionally very funny, on occasion very insightful, on occasion very cruel." He argues that "It's wrong ... to attribute political motives to government agencies that are just doing their jobs. ... we're at the investigative stage. At the end of the exercise, there may be a determination that what's been uncovered falls short of establishing a violation of the law."
When you call us wealthy monopolist bullies, "(d)o you mean this in the positive sense of wealthy, monopolist bullies?" New Times' Michael Lacey asks the Wall Street Journal, which last week ran a commentary by Daniel Akst on the New Times-Village Voice Media antitrust investigation. In his letter to the editor, Lacey says the Justice Dept. "is trying to create legal theory with this ... probe", which he calls a "stunning grab for unprecedented federal power." In a separate letter, Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger (and AAN Editorial Awards Host-for-Life), says his paper was "distressed to be lumped in with other alternative weekly papers."
Media critic Michael Anft announces he is ending his 20-year on-and-off relationship with Baltimore City Paper and retiring "to flip through heretofore-unread copies of The New Yorker and Harper's." Anft takes a parting shot at "the mostly uninspired local product we unfortunate viewers/readers/listeners have spewed at us."
Originally Baltimore's alt-weekly was known as the City Squeeze and edited by "recent Johns Hopkins grad and inveterate pain-in-the-ass Russ Smith," Michael Anft writes. Anft takes a page from Smith's book and offers some biting suggestions for the Baltimore City Paper at the quarter-century mark, including spending more money on younger staff, instead of "aging hippies."
Michael Sigman, president and publisher of LA Weekly/OC Weekly, has been asked to leave by Village Voice Media. His last day is Jan. 25. In other developments, three other AAN member papers have asked top managers to leave, including Eugene Weekly, Willamette Week and C-Ville Weekly.
