On Mar. 4, two days after the previous editor in chief, David Blum, was fired, Village Voice Media boss Michael Lacey called Ortega up and offered him the job. Despite four editors' worth of turnover since January 2006, when New Times purchased the paper and took the Village Voice Media name, Ortega decided to accept.

"Why would I hesitate?" Ortega asked. "It's the Village Voice. It's a terrific newspaper with a storied past, and what journalist wouldn't want to do it?"

"I'm sure this will be criticized since I'm not a New Yorker," said Ortega. Ortega said he's looking forward to learning from the Voice's staff.

What about his relationship with Lacey, who's often accused of micromanaging the newspaper from Phoenix?

"I never really had that problem with him," said Ortega. "I've always had complete freedom to do what I wanted." Ortega has worked for Lacey at multiple New Times papers, most recently as the top editor at the Broward-Palm Beach New Times.

He will greet his new staff on Friday, Mar. 9.

"I'm a half-Mexican kid from L.A. without New York experience," Ortega said. "We'll just see."

-Michael Calderone

An independent filmmaker is on the verge of optioning the film rights to Times staff writer Jennifer 8. Lee’s April 2005 article “The Man Date,” according to a source close to the negotiations.

But that filmmaker isn’t cutting a deal directly with The Times.

In June of this year, The Times chose the Broder-Webb-Chervin-Silberman Agency, a small but prestigious Beverly Hills firm, to represent the paper in negotiations for film and television rights to its content.

Prior to this summer, The Times handled requests for film and television rights through its own legal department.

In the agenting world, Broder-Webb was a dignified, literary choice. Then, just a month after signing on The Times, that agency was gobbled up by a giant rival, International Creative Management.

“Yes, we are working with them,” Catherine Mathis, The Times’ vice president of corporate communications, wrote in an e-mail. “They have a strong reputation in the industry.”

ICM declined to comment.

The would-be filmmaker first approached The Times directly about Ms. Lee’s article in April of this year. The paper did not respond until some six weeks later.

Soon enough, Todd Hoffman, 39, became The Times’ designated agent at Broder-Webb, and now at ICM. His other clients include Randa Haines, director of Children of a Lesser God, and Harris Goldberg, the writer of Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.

By mid-June, Mr. Hoffman had negotiated the basic terms of the “man date” deal, which would transform into a bona fide cinematic property Ms. Lee’s 1,700-word explication of the awkwardness of one-on-one heterosexual male outings.

According to the source familiar with the deal—which, if finalized, should be announced next week—the purchaser would pay approximately $10,000 upfront for exclusive filming rights for a limited time.

If that option is “exercised” in time—if a “man date” film actually enters production—the total payment for rights will likely be in the low six-figures, with the exact amount based on the total production budget.

Under Newspaper Guild rules, The Times and Ms. Lee would split all monies evenly.

Optioning human-interest newspaper articles wasn’t always such a complicated business.

Times science writer Andrew Revkin’s 1997 “A Metal-Head Becomes a Metal-God” article was fictionalized into the Mark Wahlberg flick Rock Star. Mr. Revkin said that The Times’ policies on the matter were not long ago much laxer, even “ad hoc.”

His own movie deal was negotiated almost entirely between his personal agent and the interested producer, with The Times emerging to close out details only at the very end.

But by the end of the 90’s, the paper had begun to clamp down, requiring that employees refer all movie and television requests to The Times’ own legal department.

“There are more and more of these requests,” Mr. Revkin said.

And much of the protocol of optioning is Hollywood’s, not Times Square’s, Mr. Revkin noted—including the tradition of an announcement in the trade publications. “I think part of it is just wanting to say in the movie universe very publicly that ‘This is our movie and you should stay out.’”

On the night of Aug. 7, Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey walked alone to Schiller’s Liquor Bar, on the recommendation of his hotel, the Hotel on Rivington, with a collection of writings by the journalist David Blum.

“I’m sitting there until about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, reading these clips,” said Mr. Lacey. He loved them. “I’m going into a state of depression that when I meet the guy there is going to be some enormous gap between what I read and who he is.”

The next morning, Mr. Blum arrived at the Hotel on Rivington for a job interview. Right there, in the chic hotel lobby, he did not disappoint Mr. Lacey.

For the next two and a half hours, they drank a bottle of San Pellegrino, downed a pot of coffee, and talked about several things, including narrative journalism and the future of the city’s long-running alternative weekly.

The next day, Mr. Lacey e-mailed to offer Mr. Blum the job of editor in chief of The Village Voice.

At 3 p.m. on Aug. 14, Mr. Blum arrived at The Voice’s Cooper Square office for the weekly editorial meeting. For 45 minutes, Mr. Blum, in jeans and a white dress shirt, spoke to about 20 staffers and answered questions.

The relationship between Mr. Blum and Mr. Lacey came as a surprise.

“Ward Harkavy”—The Voice’s interim editor in chief—“came in and said, ‘This is Dave Blum. He’s your new editor,’” said Jarret Murphy, a staff writer who attended the meeting.

Two months ago, Washington City Paper’s Erik Wemple had been hired for the same job. Mr. Wemple quickly changed his mind. That time, an e-mail had been sent to the staff the night before the public announcement.

“Staffers were a little annoyed that we had to find out from Gawker,” said one Voice employee who did not attend the meeting.

Wayne Barrett, a senior editor, arrived about halfway through, and asked why they hadn’t been informed beforehand, according to a Voice staffer, who described it as “very awkward.”

There were more questions posed to Mr. Blum.

“I asked him what he thought of the paper,” said Mr. Murphy. “That was a bit of a minefield.”

Mr. Blum politely passed on getting into the nitty-gritty details. “When he couldn’t answer, he didn’t bullshit us,” Mr. Murphy said. And unlike Mr. Wemple, who threw “the F-bomb several times,” Mr. Blum was far more low-key in his demeanor.

And so on Sept. 12, Mr. Blum will officially take the helm of the downtown publication, putting, perhaps, an end to the rocky adjustment period begun in November 2005, when Village Voice Media—previously called New Times—took control of the weekly newspaper.

“The past nine months have been very turbulent,” said Mr. Blum. “Change is good. Hopefully for The Voice, as well as for me.”

Mr. Blum said he was “not a storming-out-type person,” and also noted that he didn’t think Mr. Lacey’s goal was to “devote himself to micro-managing” any of the company’s 17 papers.

Mr. Blum previously worked as a Wall Street Journal reporter, an editor and writer at New York magazine, a professor at Columbia’s graduate Journalism school and, most recently, a television critic at the New York Sun.

Mr. Blum said he has read The Voice since the early 1970’s, when he lived in East Lansing, Mich. He said that back then his older brother, “a very radical leftist,” had enjoyed a subscription.

—Michael Calderone

On Aug. 11, Greg Lindsay, a freelance writer and editor, opened an envelope from the attorneys representing Absolute Publishing USA Inc., and was pleasantly surprised to find a check for $954.70.

Absolute, a luxury magazine aimed at Manhattan’s elite, had been shuttered by the company this past February, and Mr. Lindsay was one of many contributors who had not been paid for his work.

“I literally went to the bank and cashed it immediately,” said Mr. Lindsay, who had written an unpublished piece on fractional yacht ownership, “before they changed their minds.”

Following a recent out-of-court liquidation, about 200 of Absolute’s creditors (including freelance writers, photographers, suppliers and vendors) are being offered 31.89 percent of what they were owed by the company. Along with Mr. Lindsay, a number of contributors have been delighted to discover checks in the mail—the first of which were sent out on Aug. 3.

“Getting money out of Absolute, at any point during its incandescent rise, was always problematic,” said contributor Gil Schwartz, a CBS executive who writes under the pseudonym Stanley Bing. “I think all of us, to get anything at all, is pretty awesome, and relatively rare.”

The roughly one-third payment is the result of having less money than is required to settle the debts.

“The company had various debts totaling about $1.4 million,” said Jonathan Pasternak, a lawyer representing Absolute Publishing.

In mid-June, Prohibition Publishing, a subsidiary of Michigan-based Hour Media, purchased the assets—including the Absolute name, a much-coveted subscriber list and unpublished work—for $330,000. Then, about $130,000 from accounts receivable was added to pay off the debt.

Also, the magazine’s principal investor, Domingo Cuadra (who is unnamed in the letter), was “owed approximately $8,000,000,” according to the attorneys’ letter obtained by The Observer. He “agreed to waive all but $100,000 in claims.” In the end, Mr. Cuadra will receive a check for $31,890, with the creditors divvying up the rest.

But there’s still some fine print: By cashing the check, the creditor waives any claims against Absolute’s new owners. And Hour Media now owns Absolute’s unpublished work (if the writer has accepted payment for it), according to publisher John Bellardo.

Mr. Bellardo wouldn’t comment on whether any of the pieces would appear in the October debut issue.

“There is a real affinity for what they had done,” said Mr. Bellardo. “Editorially, it won’t be much of a departure.”

There will be one big change. The new high-end magazine, which had previously retailed for $8, will not show up on newsstands this time around: Absolute will only be distributed through a controlled circulation of 60,000 New Yorkers with an annual salary of at least $500,000.

—M.C.

Veteran New York magazine writer and editor David Blum has been named editor-in-chief of the Village Voice.

Blum, who began his career as a Wall Street Journal staff reporter covering urban affairs and went on to become an editor and writer at New York magazine, Esquire magazine, and The New York Times Magazine, will start on September 12, said Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey.

"I believe in the limitless possibilities of weeklies, and in the power of narrative journalism to change the way people think and feel," said Blum. "I'm honored to lead an institution as vibrant and as essential to New York City life as the Voice. I want New Yorkers to read the Voice, and to be moved, entertained, amused, confronted and compelled by what it has to say."

"The Voice's readers and writers will find a great collaborator and a smart leader in David Blum," said Lacey. "He is one of us."

After starting at the Journal in 1979, Blum moved to Esquire in 1983 as an associate editor, editing features in all areas and also creating the magazine's "Smart Money" section. From 1985 to 1992, he was a contributing editor at New York, writing numerous cover stories for the magazine including a fly-on-the-wall account of the Signature Theatre Company's remarkable struggle to produce Edward Albee and last year's penetrating analysis of the anchor dilemmas that afflicted national television executives following the death of Peter Jennings.

Blum was a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine from 1995 to 2000, penning cover stories and features, and served as deputy editor at the magazine's Part II's in 1999 and 2000. He has also written features for Vanity Fair and the New Republic, and since 2002 has been an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches the magazine writing workshop and works with students to produce nationally syndicated news stories for the Columbia News Service. For the last four years, he has also served as the television critic for the New York Sun.

Blum is the author of two books, 1992's Flash in the Pan: The Life and Death of an American Restaurant, which chronicled the birth and demise of a downtown New York City eatery and was named a "notable book" by the New York Times. In 2002 he wrote Tick...Tick...Tick...: The Long Life and Turbulent Times of 60 Minutes, a history of the legendary TV news program.

"If 60 Minutes is about good storytelling, then it has found its Scheherazade in David Blum," wrote the New Yorker's Ken Auletta. "In gripping fashion, readers are introduced to characters worthy of a novel....Tick...Tick...Tick... is a narrative as fascinating as the best 60 Minutes stories."

Born in Queens, Blum graduated from the University of Chicago in 1977 with a degree in English literature. He now lives in Manhattan with his wife, Terri Minsky, a television writer-producer, and their two children, Sam, age 12, and Annie, age 11.

Last week, on the April 13 edition of the radio program Democracy Now!, host Amy Goodman brought current Voice columnist Nat Hentoff and staff writer Tom Robbins on the show. They were met by the recently resigned Press Clips columnist, Sydney Schanberg, and the paper’s recently fired Washington correspondent, James Ridgeway.

The interview was a boisterous consciousness-raising session about the evils of Michael Lacey, Village Voice Media’s executive editor.

Mr. Lacey, the man responsible for much of the overhaul at The Voice since New Times completed the $400 million merger in November, didn’t appear on the program. But listeners were treated to an FM version of what’s going on at The Voice for the last four months: two sides bitterly talking past each other.

As the dissident Voice staff tells it, the new management is a bunch of out-of-town bean counters bent on dismantling a precious 50-year-old journalistic institution. The new management, in turn, depicts the paper as a haven for thumb-suckers, with a staff so self-satisfied that it refuses to stop writing left-leaning commentary and go out and do some reporting.

In tone and nuance, the standoff now suggests a battle over a decaying historic building—between a pushy, mercenary developer and a bunch of cranky cat-and-newspaper-hoarding tenants.

It wasn’t always this way. Earlier in the relationship, some Voice staffers had warily welcomed the arrival of New Times, hoping the new management would reverse an internal perception of neglect on the part of the former owners.

“The paper was not putting out stuff we had come there to be a part of,” one Voice staffer said. “There is a lot of pent-up frustration.”

And New Times, though the dominant partner, took on The Voice’s name—The Voice’s name had more cachet.

The New Times/Voice deal was approved by regulators in November 2005. In January, Voice publisher Judith Miszner resigned. Editor Don Forst resigned in December 2005. Doug Simmons took over from Mr. Forst, and Ms. Miszner’s position was taken by Michael Cohen, the publisher of Miami New Times.

The top editorial authority was Mr. Lacey, who began flying in, when needed, from Phoenix, Ariz., where he resides.

Mr. Lacey made it clear that though his chain had bought The Voice, he didn’t have much taste for the newspaper as it was constituted. If he was the new landlord, he was talking about a gut rehab at a minimum, and possibly a teardown.

At a Feb. 1 meeting, Mr. Lacey bluntly told staffers of his plans to eschew Bush-bashing commentary for local investigative pieces.

Now, the organization of the paper is being changed. Much of the front of the book is being overhauled. Mr. Ridgeway’s column has been killed, and so has Mr. Schanberg’s Press Clips column and Toni Schlesinger’s Shelter column, which provided quirky interactions with apartment and loft dwellers. The film-review budget has been cut by two-thirds, according to a source, and some film reviews are now being contributed by freelance writers from other New Times papers. According to Voice staffers, New Times has also dismissed The Voice’s three-person fact-checking department and laid off two of the five copy editors. Last month, Mr. Lacey killed interim editor Ward Harkavy’s blog, the Bush Beat. The end-page essay has been discontinued. Voice writers now have to use the New Times stylebook, and according to a source, there are words—including “meta” and “subversive”—that are now banned from the paper.

In a phone conversation, Mr. Lacey said that all the changes are designed to create space for more magazine-style reported pieces. Commentary, at least as currently practiced in The Village Voice, has no place in the New Times regime.

“I want our writers to start reporting,” Mr. Lacey said. “One of the things that happened with the Internet and blogging is that it made simple punditry in newsprint irrelevant. It’s no longer timely.”

(“Everything I do is reporting,” Voice columnist Nat Hentoff said by phone. “I have no patience for people who write off the top of their heads based on what other people have said.”)

“I’m going to change the dynamic,” Mr. Lacey said. “It’s true for any paper we operate: We have a reputation for doing hard news. We call people up and get the information. We dig the records up. If people aren’t comfortable with that, they’ll have to find employment elsewhere.

“This is so simple,” Mr. Lacey said. “It’s almost like reading See Dick Run. Our job is to go out and get the information about how the deal went down. All the punditry that goes on in your head at 2 in the morning is no more valuable than a sophomore in college debating over espresso. The deal is always more interesting and more complicated than you know sitting at your typewriter. Once you go out and start talking to people, you get a lot of new information.”

Mr. Schanberg, the media critic, said he decided to resign after Mr. Lacey told staffers he didn’t want references to outside reporting in The Voice. “I came to the conclusion he didn’t like my work,” Mr. Schanberg said. “I couldn’t work for someone where my product wasn’t respected.”

(On Jan. 3, Mr. Schanberg took on the Bush administration over the National Security Agency wiretapping story. On Jan. 17, he wrote about James Risen’s book on N.S.A. wiretapping.)

Mr. Lacey is currently interviewing candidates for a permanent editor—his most recent interim editor, Doug Simmons, was fired last month. According to one staffer, more than 50 candidates have been considered. Mr. Lacey declined to name potential selections, but said he is considering applicants from national magazines, daily papers and alternative weeklies, and hasn’t set a timetable for his decision. He is not limiting his search to New York City–based candidates.

“That would be a real plus, but ultimately, it’s the writers who have to know New York City. It’s not like any city is unknowable, or unlearnable. The question is: Will they put in the effort to work all the time to grasp this place?”

Once he lands his new editor, Mr. Lacey said the role of a weekly paper such as The Voice is to set the agenda, not comment on it.

“All that chatter, all that blogging—it’s people writing about what other people have reported. We can our wrap our hands around the throat of the beast, find out what happened, and give that to readers,” he said. “It’s fun. It’s a kick-ass way to make a living. We have found a way for all the troublemakers at the back of the school bus to make a living. You want to sit in your room and ruminate? Not on my nickel.”

Can Mr. Lacey’s new rumination-free, troublemaking Voice convince a new generation of readers accustomed to getting their classifieds on Craigslist, their music reviews on Pitchfork and their dose of political commentary from The Daily Show to not pass by the free stacks that wait lonesome on Village corners?

“When Dan Wolf was the editor, you would find conflicting points of view in every issue,” said Ed Koch, a friend of Voice founder Wolf. “After his departure, I thought The Voice became much more radical in its point of view and more uniform. When it becomes predictable, you ignore it.”

“The original Voice was an iconoclastic newspaper,” said New Yorker media critic Ken Auletta, who covered city politics for The Voice in the early 70’s. “Increasingly, the paper became predictable. You would pick up a headline and know what’s in a story. Despite the fact it’s now free, you’d walk by it and not read it because you’d know what’s in it. I suppose I’m being unfair because I wasn’t reading it that often. And maybe I missed it, but there were few surprises.”

For some, The Voice has remained relevant on beats, including labor, class and politics. “Wayne Barrett I read closely,” said Patrick Healy, The New York Times’ chief New York political correspondent. “He is a real institution on the political beat.”

But current and former Voice staffers see New Times’ focus on local reporting and seeming disinterest in national politics and commentary as an abdication of duty, of a dismantling of their institutions. And it was Mr. Lacey’s March 31 firing of Washington, D.C., correspondent James Ridgeway, a 30-year veteran of the paper, that has been the clearest signifier of that new direction.

“It just didn’t make sense that we have an office in D.C. when what we needed to do is concentrate on New York City,” Mr. Lacey said.

“[Mr. Lacey] wants to cut the budget and fatten profits,” said Karen Durbin, The Voice’s editor from 1994 to 1996. “I hate to be blunt about it, but it makes my blood boil. The paper always did national and international coverage. It was part of who we were, and part of who our readers are.”

As editor, Ms. Durbin sent Mr. Ridgeway to Haiti to file dispatches on the civil unrest there. “The Voice always stood on two pillars, politics and culture,” she said.

“What the new owners haven’t grasped yet,” said staff writer Tom Robbins, “is that New Yorkers care more about what’s going on in the Bush administration than they do what’s going on in the Bloomberg administration.”

Mr. Ridgeway, a Newspaper Guild member, has retained attorney Jan Constantine and is currently considering legal options to fight his dismissal. “We’re reviewing our options,” Ms. Constantine said by phone April 17. She said she’s been retained by Voice writers worried about their job security and further dismissals.

“Well, I think all journalists should check their ego at the door,” Mr. Lacey said, when asked if Voice staffers might be angry about giving up national ambitions. “The history of this business is filled with people who have to turn their heads sideways to fit through a door because their ego is so large. Humility never hurt anyone.”

But it’s hard to achieve a state of humility through force. For one thing, a newspaper with radical staff changes is a grim place to show up each day. On April 17, online managing editor Nathan Deuel quit to take a position at Rolling Stone. On April 6, Web manager Akash Goyal also quit the paper, according to a source.

“There have been many good music editors, but Chuck Eddy was the most efficient, most professional I worked with,” said Voice senior editor and rock critic Robert Christgau on April 18. “He was fabulous to work with. He was the only editor who got his sections in not on time, but ahead of time. He was so easy to work with. He was great.”

Fortune may be bracing for another senior-staff departure. The magazine’s star Enron reporter, Bethany McLean, has held talks with The New York Times Magazine and the still-unnamed Condé Nast business title, according to sources close to Ms. McLean.

“I’m totally happy covering the Enron trial,” Ms. McLean said by phone from Houston on April 18. “I’m not planning to make any decisions until the trial is over. It’s the final chapter to this Enron saga. I’m really grateful to Fortune to let me spend the time to cover it.”

Last month, senior editor Daniel Roth departed for the Condé Nast magazine, helmed by Wall Street Journal alumna Joanne Lipman.

At Fortune, Ms. McLean was recently promoted to editor-at-large. A Fortune spokesperson said the promotion wasn’t made in an effort to counter a competitor’s offer.

“Like all our writers, we value Bethany highly. As with all our writers, we want to make sure she’s happy. But any recent changes in the editorial structure is not specific to Bethany.”

—G.S.

Last week, on the April 13 edition of the radio program Democracy Now!, host Amy Goodman brought current Voice columnist Nat Hentoff and staff writer Tom Robbins on the show. They were met by the recently resigned Press Clips columnist, Sydney Schanberg, and the paper’s recently fired Washington correspondent, James Ridgeway.

The interview was a boisterous consciousness-raising session about the evils of Michael Lacey, Village Voice Media’s executive editor.

Mr. Lacey, the man responsible for much of the overhaul at The Voice since New Times completed the $400 million merger in November, didn’t appear on the program. But listeners were treated to an FM version of what’s going on at The Voice for the last four months: two sides bitterly talking past each other.

As the dissident Voice staff tells it, the new management is a bunch of out-of-town bean counters bent on dismantling a precious 50-year-old journalistic institution. The new management, in turn, depicts the paper as a haven for thumb-suckers, with a staff so self-satisfied that it refuses to stop writing left-leaning commentary and go out and do some reporting.

In tone and nuance, the standoff now suggests a battle over a decaying historic building—between a pushy, mercenary developer and a bunch of cranky cat-and-newspaper-hoarding tenants.

It wasn’t always this way. Earlier in the relationship, some Voice staffers had warily welcomed the arrival of New Times, hoping the new management would reverse an internal perception of neglect on the part of the former owners.

“The paper was not putting out stuff we had come there to be a part of,” one Voice staffer said. “There is a lot of pent-up frustration.”

And New Times, though the dominant partner, took on The Voice’s name— The Voice’s name had more cachet.

The New Times/ Voice deal was approved by regulators in November 2005. In January, Voice publisher Judith Miszner resigned. Editor Don Forst resigned in December 2005. Doug Simmons took over from Mr. Forst, and Ms. Miszner’s position was taken by Michael Cohen, the publisher of Miami New Times.

The top editorial authority was Mr. Lacey, who began flying in, when needed, from Phoenix, Ariz., where he resides.

Mr. Lacey made it clear that though his chain had bought The Voice, he didn’t have much taste for the newspaper as it was constituted. If he was the new landlord, he was talking about a gut rehab at a minimum, and possibly a teardown.

At a Feb. 1 meeting, Mr. Lacey bluntly told staffers of his plans to eschew Bush-bashing commentary for local investigative pieces.

Now, the organization of the paper is being changed. Much of the front of the book is being overhauled. Mr. Ridgeway’s column has been killed, and so has Mr. Schanberg’s Press Clips column and Toni Schlesinger’s Shelter column, which provided quirky interactions with apartment and loft dwellers. The film-review budget has been cut by two-thirds, according to a source, and some film reviews are now being contributed by freelance writers from other New Times papers. According to Voice staffers, New Times has also dismissed The Voice’s three-person fact-checking department and laid off two of the five copy editors. Last month, Mr. Lacey killed interim editor Ward Harkavy’s blog, the Bush Beat. The end-page essay has been discontinued. Voice writers now have to use the New Times stylebook, and according to a source, there are words—including “meta” and “subversive”—that are now banned from the paper.

In a phone conversation, Mr. Lacey said that all the changes are designed to create space for more magazine-style reported pieces. Commentary, at least as currently practiced in The Village Voice, has no place in the New Times regime.

“I want our writers to start reporting,” Mr. Lacey said. “One of the things that happened with the Internet and blogging is that it made simple punditry in newsprint irrelevant. It’s no longer timely.”

(“Everything I do is reporting,” Voice columnist Nat Hentoff said by phone. “I have no patience for people who write off the top of their heads based on what other people have said.”)

“I’m going to change the dynamic,” Mr. Lacey said. “It’s true for any paper we operate: We have a reputation for doing hard news. We call people up and get the information. We dig the records up. If people aren’t comfortable with that, they’ll have to find employment elsewhere.

“This is so simple,” Mr. Lacey said. “It’s almost like reading See Dick Run. Our job is to go out and get the information about how the deal went down. All the punditry that goes on in your head at 2 in the morning is no more valuable than a sophomore in college debating over espresso. The deal is always more interesting and more complicated than you know sitting at your typewriter. Once you go out and start talking to people, you get a lot of new information.”

Mr. Schanberg, the media critic, said he decided to resign after Mr. Lacey told staffers he didn’t want references to outside reporting in The Voice. “I came to the conclusion he didn’t like my work,” Mr. Schanberg said. “I couldn’t work for someone where my product wasn’t respected.”

(On Jan. 3, Mr. Schanberg took on the Bush administration over the National Security Agency wiretapping story. On Jan. 17, he wrote about James Risen’s book on N.S.A. wiretapping.)

Mr. Lacey is currently interviewing candidates for a permanent editor—his most recent interim editor, Doug Simmons, was fired last month. According to one staffer, more than 50 candidates have been considered. Mr. Lacey declined to name potential selections, but said he is considering applicants from national magazines, daily papers and alternative weeklies, and hasn’t set a timetable for his decision. He is not limiting his search to New York City–based candidates.

“That would be a real plus, but ultimately, it’s the writers who have to know New York City. It’s not like any city is unknowable, or unlearnable. The question is: Will they put in the effort to work all the time to grasp this place?”

Once he lands his new editor, Mr. Lacey said the role of a weekly paper such as The Voice is to set the agenda, not comment on it.

“All that chatter, all that blogging—it’s people writing about what other people have reported. We can our wrap our hands around the throat of the beast, find out what happened, and give that to readers,” he said. “It’s fun. It’s a kick-ass way to make a living. We have found a way for all the troublemakers at the back of the school bus to make a living. You want to sit in your room and ruminate? Not on my nickel.”

Can Mr. Lacey’s new rumination-free, troublemaking Voice convince a new generation of readers accustomed to getting their classifieds on Craigslist, their music reviews on Pitchfork and their dose of political commentary from The Daily Show to not pass by the free stacks that wait lonesome on Village corners?

“When Dan Wolf was the editor, you would find conflicting points of view in every issue,” said Ed Koch, a friend of Voice founder Wolf. “After his departure, I thought The Voice became much more radical in its point of view and more uniform. When it becomes predictable, you ignore it.”

“The original Voice was an iconoclastic newspaper,” said New Yorker media critic Ken Auletta, who covered city politics for The Voice in the early 70’s. “Increasingly, the paper became predictable. You would pick up a headline and know what’s in a story. Despite the fact it’s now free, you’d walk by it and not read it because you’d know what’s in it. I suppose I’m being unfair because I wasn’t reading it that often. And maybe I missed it, but there were few surprises.”

For some, The Voice has remained relevant on beats, including labor, class and politics. “Wayne Barrett I read closely,” said Patrick Healy, The New York Times’ chief New York political correspondent. “He is a real institution on the political beat.”

But current and former Voice staffers see New Times’ focus on local reporting and seeming disinterest in national politics and commentary as an abdication of duty, of a dismantling of their institutions. And it was Mr. Lacey’s March 31 firing of Washington, D.C., correspondent James Ridgeway, a 30-year veteran of the paper, that has been the clearest signifier of that new direction.

“It just didn’t make sense that we have an office in D.C. when what we needed to do is concentrate on New York City,” Mr. Lacey said.

“[Mr. Lacey] wants to cut the budget and fatten profits,” said Karen Durbin, The Voice’s editor from 1994 to 1996. “I hate to be blunt about it, but it makes my blood boil. The paper always did national and international coverage. It was part of who we were, and part of who our readers are.”

As editor, Ms. Durbin sent Mr. Ridgeway to Haiti to file dispatches on the civil unrest there. “ The Voice always stood on two pillars, politics and culture,” she said.

“What the new owners haven’t grasped yet,” said staff writer Tom Robbins, “is that New Yorkers care more about what’s going on in the Bush administration than they do what’s going on in the Bloomberg administration.”

Mr. Ridgeway, a Newspaper Guild member, has retained attorney Jan Constantine and is currently considering legal options to fight his dismissal. “We’re reviewing our options,” Ms. Constantine said by phone April 17. She said she’s been retained by Voice writers worried about their job security and further dismissals.

“Well, I think all journalists should check their ego at the door,” Mr. Lacey said, when asked if Voice staffers might be angry about giving up national ambitions. “The history of this business is filled with people who have to turn their heads sideways to fit through a door because their ego is so large. Humility never hurt anyone.”

But it’s hard to achieve a state of humility through force. For one thing, a newspaper with radical staff changes is a grim place to show up each day. On April 17, online managing editor Nathan Deuel quit to take a position at Rolling Stone. On April 6, Web manager Akash Goyal also quit the paper, according to a source.

“There have been many good music editors, but Chuck Eddy was the most efficient, most professional I worked with,” said Voice senior editor and rock critic Robert Christgau on April 18. “He was fabulous to work with. He was the only editor who got his sections in not on time, but ahead of time. He was so easy to work with. He was great.”

F ortune may be bracing for another senior-staff departure. The magazine’s star Enron reporter, Bethany McLean, has held talks with The New York Times Magazine and the still-unnamed Condé Nast business title, according to sources close to Ms. McLean.

“I’m totally happy covering the Enron trial,” Ms. McLean said by phone from Houston on April 18. “I’m not planning to make any decisions until the trial is over. It’s the final chapter to this Enron saga. I’m really grateful to Fortune to let me spend the time to cover it.”

Last month, senior editor Daniel Roth departed for the Condé Nast magazine, helmed by Wall Street Journal alumna Joanne Lipman.

At Fortune, Ms. McLean was recently promoted to editor-at-large. A Fortune spokesperson said the promotion wasn’t made in an effort to counter a competitor’s offer.

“Like all our writers, we value Bethany highly. As with all our writers, we want to make sure she’s happy. But any recent changes in the editorial structure is not specific to Bethany.”

—G.S.