By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 9/24/12 3:37pm

Backpage

A sampling of print sex ads from the pages of the Village Voice circa 2007.

Print Sex Ads Will Remain at Newly-Formed Voice Media Group

Backpage.com may be gone, but sex ads are here to stay at the alt weeklies formerly owned by Village Voice Media. Over the weekend, Village Voice Media announced it had reshuffled and separated its 13 newspapers from Backpage.com, the classifieds website with the controversial “adult” advertising section. Backpage may not be part of the newly-formed newspaper company, Voice Media Group, but that doesn’t mean its doing away with the highly profitable print sex ads.

“Voice Media Group will continue to support the current adult classifieds in Village Voice,” a spokesperson for Voice Media Group told the Observer this afternoon. Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 9/14/12 12:14pm

Village People

Tony Ortega (Photo: Twitter)

Runnin’ Scared: Was Tony Ortega Pushed Out at the Village Voice?

The Village Voice’s EIC Tony Ortega announced in a blog post today that he is leaving the troubled alt-weekly to “pursue a book proposal about Scientology in its time of crisis.” Mr. Ortega attributed his departure to a desire to turn his “465 blog posts about Scientology” into a book that prompted him to make the jump, but sources with knowledge of the situation tell The Observer Mr. Ortega’s exit from the Voice was not his decision.  Read More

By Foster Kamer 8/17/12 4:34pm

Raising Arizona

village_voice

Layoffs Hit Editorial Staff at The Village Voice

Layoffs are hitting the editorial staff at The Village Voice today, and they’re hitting some of the most widely-read staff writers in the office. The Observer has heard from multiple sources familiar with the situation that the bad news is beginning to spread around the office, and that the following people are out at the Voice: Read More