In a passage in Louis Menand's piece on the Village Voice, the New Yorker critic claimed that "after 1970, the alternative press died out" after "mainstream publications moved into the field." Russ Smith corrects the record: "Menand is apparently unaware that radical 'underground' papers like The Los Angeles Free Press and Berkeley Barb begat a new kind of weekly, papers like The Chicago Reader, Phoenix New Times and L.A. Weekly, which, until recently, were staples in their respective cities and not only produced excellent journalism but made a lot of money as well," Smith writes on his new website, Splice Today. The "sloppy article ... certainly muddies the history of not only The Village Voice, but also the weeklies that it inspired."
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.
A Brooklyn restaurant "got a surprise visit by two Italian-looking guys claiming to be Village Voice food critics, and asking for some free food from the kitchen. When asked for their names, the men replied that they couldn't say because they're 'anonymous' (natch)," the Voice's Sarah DiGregorio writes. The restaurant owner "continued to chat the guys up, which apparently made them more and more nervous, until they got up and left just before their food was ready."
The Voice "is one of the most successful enterprises in the history of American journalism," New Yorker critic Louis Menand writes in a lengthy piece tracing the early history of the paper. "Impersonality and objectivity are part of the ethic of journalistic identity," Menand writes. "The Voice showed that you could disrespect those idols and still sell newspapers." He ends by arguing that the Voice of 50 years ago did what the blogosphere does now. "We say that's still true -- click around and see if you agree," the Voice's Roy Edroso writes. "As to the continuing relevance of the mission of our forebears, we're aware of it, and we do our best. The Voice covers the Village, and the Village, so far as we're concerned, is everywhere."
The Voice parted ways yesterday with Hentoff, who has worked for the paper since 1958, as well as Lynn Yaeger, who has been there for about 30 years, and staff writer Chloe Hilliard. The 83-year-old Hentoff tells the New York Times that he will keep writing his weekly column for the United Media syndicate and contributing pieces to The Wall Street Journal. Layoffs are also being reported at one of the Voice's sister papers on the other coast. Mediabistro reports that OC Weekly has laid off managing editor Rich Kane, clubs editor Nate Jackson and staff writer Vickie Chang.
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."
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.
In the fifteenth installment of this year's "How I Got That Story" series, Village Voice music editor Rob Harvilla talks to Ling Ma about his winning columns, which included a memorable Venn diagram-based breakdown of a breakout hip-hop hit. While Harvilla doesn't take himself too seriously (he says his career choice is "pretty frivolous"), you can tell he is serious about music by reading his work. In this Q&A, he discusses the rock critic's lexicon, how blogs and the web have impacted music criticism, and the distinct absence of rock-critic groupies. "It's a great job and I love it, but I don't think women are generally attracted to rock critics on the basis of them being rock critics," Harvilla says. "It's usually in spite of that fact."
According to FBI documents obtained by the Washington Post via FOIA, the bureau "closely tracked the grand and mundane aspects of the acclaimed novelist's life" from 1962-1977. It all started when notorious FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover read a Mailer essay on Jacqueline Kennedy in Esquire in 1962, and decided that he needed more info on the author and social critic, who helped start the Village Voice in 1955. The Post obtained 165 pages of the FBI's 171 pages on Mailer, many of which were stamped CLASSIFIED and SECRET and SUBV. CONTROL, apparently referring to a program to watch suspected subversives, the Post reports.
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.
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