"We're relieved the Justice Department has decided to draw a line in the sand in this case," Michael Lacey, executive editor of New Times, sarcastically tells LA business columnist, Daniel Akst. The columnist chides New Times and Village Voice Media for being sanctimonious about the evils of "big-city dailies" but concedes Lacey's point: "If a generation's worth of media consolidation is OK because of new technologies and competition between broadcasters, print outlets, the Internet and so forth, it probably shouldn't be a hanging offense that a couple of unsuccessful weeklies are closing in concert."
Chuck Colletti and Doug Meadow, the new owners of the New York Press, tell AAN News they don't plan any changes in its eclectic mix of politics, arts and commentary. They have made what they describe as "a few" staff reductions, fired Editor John Strausbaugh and promoted former Managing Editor Lisa Kearns to that position. As for taking on The Village Voice, they say the Press will compete with, but can't dethrone, that venerable alt-weekly.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief Russ Smith yesterday sold his iconoclastic weekly to a pair of publishing entrepreneurs for "around $5 million," according to the New York Post. New owners Chuck Coletti and Doug Meadow say they don't plan to do much on the editorial front, besides firing vacationing Editor John Strausbaugh as soon as they can find him. Smith will continue to write his "Mugger" column.
Barrs, who was editor-in-chief and "The Finger" at New Times LA until it was shuttered, takes over at New Times' flagship paper, according to a NT Media press release. Joining him in Phoenix as associate editor is Tony Ortega, who worked for Barrs in LA after starting his career in Phoenix. Meanwhile, former Associate Editor Patti Epler is named managing editor.
"Does the U.S. Department of Justice really have so little to do it must investigate why a couple of alternatives were folded?" E&P asks in a Nov. 25 editorial. With so many media outlets in both the Los Angeles and Cleveland markets where the two alternative weekly chains closed papers to end head-to-head competition, advertisers have plenty of places to go. "It's not an argument Justice can make with a straight face," E&P concludes.
Sources tell the Los Angeles Times that federal investigators may be pursuing a legal solution that would actually re-open alternative newsweeklies in Los Angeles and Cleveland, the two cities where Village Voice Media and New Times agreed to close papers and eliminate competition. The federal anti-trust investigation is "unusually fast-paced," The Times' Tim Rutten reports. "Clearly, they've decided to move before the bodies get too cold," an anti-trust attorney tells Rutten.
Saying it’s "just business," the Tribune Co. has ordered five Advocate*Weekly billing and administrative staff to move their offices into the Hartford Courant building. The Tribune Co. says the move will help consolidate different billing and other business practices. "People over here are saying that if they do this, what's … next?" Advocate*Weekly CEO Fran Zankowski tells AAN News.
On Oct. 3, New Times published a short news article about the lewd behavior conviction of Kevin Graves, a producer and television personality at KSBY-TV in San Luis Obispo. The conviction, handed down seven months earlier, never made it into the news until it appeared in New Times. Graves is married to Sharon Graves, a popular weather forecaster on the same station. When the New Times story broke, Sharon Graves abruptly quit her job and left SLO County with her husband and children. The public response to the family's sudden departure was overwhelming, with most callers and letter writers decrying New Times decision to publish the story. In this week's issue, New Times asks several journalists and local personalities: Was the furor the downside to aggressive journalism in a small community? Or was it a case of a newspaper publishing something that should rightfully have remained a secret in the interests of individual privacy?
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