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.

Continue ReadingJim Larkin Names New Publisher at Village Voice

The Stranger recently took a unique approach to address a significant error made by Theater Editor Brendan Kiley: Kiley confused Eugene O'Neill and Neil Simon, so The Stranger administered a "Eugene O’Neil Simon Quiz." Kiley was asked to identify photos of the two men, as well as biographical facts and excerpts of dialogue. Kiley achieved a perfect score, although The Stranger failed him on his essay (which could be summarized as "big deal"). The "correction" was picked up by Romenesko and Regret the Error, and the latter praised The Stranger's quiz as "fun, interactive, and it demonstrates that the paper takes accuracy seriously enough to do something innovative."

Continue ReadingThe Stranger’s Unusual Corrections Draw Praise

Kathryn Drury had about 40 Christmas gifts to ship. Procrastinating until the bitter end, she was forced to wrap all the presents in a rush one evening. When she ran out of traditional holiday paper, she improvised with a stack of old newspapers. It wasn't until the next day, after the gifts were mailed, that it dawned on Drury that her ersatz wrapping paper was the Village Voice, home to "pages and pages of personal ads, including gay porn, leather, punishment, phone sex and escort services," Drury tells The Burlington Free Press. "I had just sent boxes of presents to my husband's very Catholic family adorned with naked ladies in string bikinis and muscular, well-oiled men in jock straps."

Continue ReadingVermont Woman Experiences Village Voice Holiday Mishap

According to Cleveland's The Plain Dealer, Attorney General Jim Petro is looking for potential antitrust violations that would result from the merger. The paper quotes a senior attorney with Petro's office who said the deal "raises new concerns that combining these two publishing companies would eliminate or restrain competition between them in some markets where they operate rival newsweeklies with overlapping advertising and news coverage." (Ed.: VVM and New Times no longer operate "rival newsweeklies" in the same market.) The attorney was commenting in response to a letter complaining about the merger written by Terry Smith, the editor of AAN-member paper The Athens News.

Continue ReadingOhio ‘Studying’ Village Voice-New Times Merger

In its December newsletter, the Alternative Weekly Network announced that "each of the five [Village Voice Media] markets already boasts existing or new publications locked up and ready to include on AWN sales presentations." The new publications include Minneapolis' The Rake, New York's L Magazine, and Nashville's Gannett-owned All The Rage. In addition, AWN hopes to land Seattle's The Stranger, which is currently a Ruxton Media Group paper.

Continue ReadingAWN Plugs Holes in VVM Markets