Michael Sigman will replace Judy Jablonski as publisher of LA Weekly and OC Weekly at the end of this year. Jablonski is starting her own media consulting firm and takes the two alt pubs with her as her first clients.
Jeff Cole has joined Village Voice Media as national account executive. Cole has both trade and alternative publishing experience and will focus on national sales for all the seven papers in the company.
Witnessing the destruction of the World Trade Center and hearing the news reports linking the tragedy to Arab terrorism, Arab-Americans feel like they're "caught between the horse and the horseshoe," The Village Voice reports.
Dave Retik of Boston-based venture capital firm Alta Communications Partners and a colleague were headed for Los Angeles on a business trip when American Airlines Flight 11 sliced into the World Trade Center. ''He was incredibly smart. He was incredibly funny. I never saw anyone travel like he did or work as much as he did,'' New Times CEO Jim Larkin tells The Boston Globe about his financial partner. ''We miss him terribly.''
Across the country, alternative newsweeklies ditched their planned front pages as the awesome events of Tuesday unfolded. East Coast papers like The Village Voice and Washington City Paper are sharing stories and pictures with colleagues from Maine to California.
Alisa Solomon emerged from a subway stop near the World Trade Center seconds before its second tower was struck by a plane. "(W)e knew in our bellies that America was changed forever," she writes in the Village Voice online report. "Arms, legs. Parts of people. They were falling on my head," said an administrative assistant who was about to enter the WTC when the first plane hit.
