Michael Sigman, president/publisher of LA/OC Weekly, announces that the papers have brought veteran advertising executives on board at the two Village Voice Media papers. Dar Brown has been named associate publisher/advertising for LA Weekly, and Melissa Fisher has been named advertising director for OC Weekly.
Peter Noel, formerly The Village Voice's only African-American news reporter, tells mediabistro.com he left the Voice because Editor Don Forst asked him to stop giving Rev. Al Sharpton so much ink. Noel allows that "Sharpton dominated [my coverage of the mayoral race] pretty much" but says he was giving the controversial preacher a voice at the Voice. Forst says that's "quite incorrect." Forst says Noel resigned because he objected to Forst's asking for attribution on quoted, but unnamed, sources.
While publicly traded media companies are laying off employees and warning Wall Street of sharply diminished returns, Chicago's free circulation papers are holding their own, Kathy Bergen of the Chicago Tribune reports. "There isn't the voracious need to satisfy shareholders and start making layoffs," Richard Karpel, executive director of AAN, tells the Trib. Chicago Reader Publisher Jane Levine tells Bergen: "Our total revenue in 2001 will be about even with 2000, and I feel blessed for that."
