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

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.

We called back to clarify that print sex ads would remain in the pages of the company's twelve other newspapers. Scott Tobias, the CEO of the new company, confirmed the ads will still run at all of the alt-weeklies in the chain.

"We will not be changing our business model," he said.

Backpage's adult ads have been linked to underage sex trafficking and prostitution leading the site to become the target of lawsuits, legislation and the ire of New York Times columnist Nick Kristof.

Tony Ortega. (Photo: Twitter)

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. 

Though writing about Scientology may be Mr. Ortega’s life preserver, a former staffer told us his relentless pursuit of scoops on the controversial church may have been a distraction during his final months at the paper.

“He was increasingly obsessed with Scientology and had neglected almost all of his editorial duties at the paper," the ex-staffer said. "Sometimes he wouldn't even edit features.”

The former staffer also said Mr. Ortega began to worry about his future when writer James King joined the staff in January from the Phoenix New Times, which is headquartered in the same building as Village Voice Media's corporate management. Mr. King was known among staffers as a favorite son of VVM Executive Editor Mike Lacey and the chain's bosses in Phoenix, a fact that made Mr. Ortega uneasy.

According to the ex-staffer we spoke with, Mr. Ortega went out of his way to establish a good relation with Mr. King

“Since James's arrival, it's been clear that Tony is afraid and saw that James had been sent in by corporate to keep an eye on him, and maybe even serve as his replacement. Hence Tony's willingness to pretty much lick King's asshole--he was hoping, it seemed, that this would be reciprocated positively by corporate," the former staffer said. "Tony always went out of his way to privilege King and treat him glowingly.”

Another source familiar with the beleaguered paper told us Mr. Ortega’s fears increased after a late August visit from the executive managing editor of Village Voice Media, Christine Brennan, a.k.a. “The Wicked Witch of Westword.” Ms. Brennan, who got her start at Westword, the chain’s Denver weekly, earned her nickname after gaining a reputation as a harbinger of doom within the chain who appeared whenever management was set to execute cutbacks at one of their papers.

The Voice’s music critic, Maura Johnston, also announced she is leaving the paper today in a note on her Facebook page.

"today is my last day at the voice. thanks to everyone who wrote for me, made music worth writing about, and read the section. i'm very proud of the work i've done," Ms. Johnston wrote.

So far, the Village Voice Media has made no announcements about a replacement for Mr. Ortega. We reached out to Mr. Ortega, Ms. Johnston and Village Voice Media. As of this writing, we have yet to receive a response.

These latest departures come after a rough summer over at the Voice. In August, four editorial staffers were laid off. The paper has also increasingly been dealing with legal and political drama due to its online adult classifieds operation, Backpage.com, which has been a crucial source of revenue for Village Voice Media in recent years.

For anyone who wants to wish Mr. Ortega well in his next chapter, a source familiar with the paper told us he will be having departure drinks at The Scratcher at 5 p.m. tonight.

Camille Dodero (Staff Writer), Steven Thrasher (Staff Writer) and Victoria Bekiempis (Staff Writer), and we also heard Araceli Cruz was cut to part-time status. Cruz, who has been with the Voice since 2007, is a senior associate editor who works on both event listings and features across the paper.

Dodero originally joined the Voice as the alt-weekly's web editor in 2007, arriving from the Boston Phoenix (her last title at the paper was as a staff writer). Over the last few years, she's been responsible for a fair share of memorable features that have put the paper in a national spotlight, including (but by no means limited to) one of the first on-the-ground in-depth looks at the Insane Clown Posse's Gathering of the Juggalos (after which, doing so became a yearly tradition for many a media outlet) and a recent series about an amateur ambush-porn entrepreneur.    

Thrasher's been with the Voice since 2009, and was recently named the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association Journalist of the Year, 2012. Thrasher's coverage of metro civic stories and LGBT local and national issues (see: Bad Lieutenant, Dan Choi, 'Maybe I Do, Maybe I Don't’) have earned him a wide haul of accolades.

Bekiempis has been writing on the Voice’s news blog, Runnin' Scared, for six months; she's been with the company in one capacity or another for two and a half years. She relocated to New York after working at Village Voice Media's sister publication, the Broward-Palm Beach New Times, since May 2011.

When reached by phone, Village Voice editor-in-chief Tony Ortega declined to comment, noting the layoffs as a "personnel matter."

We've also heard further rumblings of budget cuts and a pending office move out of the Village Voice building. If you know any more, we're listening.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Three days later Independent Film Center, also a Rainbow Media property, pulled all of its advertising, worth some $20,000, from the paper, wrote Mr. Kamer.

Now LiveNation, which does all the ticketing for Madison Square Garden (also owned by Cablevision), has now joined IFC in pulling its ads from the paper. Mr. Kamer said it will cost the paper over $1 million in advertising revenue.

Voice editor Tony Ortega said that representatives from The Voice's business side "talked to people at Live Nation that said, yeah, Dolan asked us to pull the ads."

One million dollars is a lot of money! We asked Mr. Ortega if there was any chance Mr. Kamer would get into trouble.

“No, we encouraged him," said Mr. Ortega. "You saw what he did today.”

And, Mr. Ortega, was this a fair response by Mr. Dolan?

"I don't know Dolan well enough to understand why he’s so sensitive about his penis," said Mr. Ortega.

Previously: Cablevision Triples Income, Newsday Slows Bleeding>