We knew this day would come. The Village Voice has made good on its threats and fired three longtime writers: nightlife columnist Michael Musto, theater critic Michael Feingold and food critic Robert Sietsema. Last week, which was particularly devastating for New York media, two top Village Voice editors–Will Bourne and Jessica Lustig–resigned rather than lay off five writers, as Read More
Scott Foundas is going to The Village Voice as the principal film writer, Voice Media Group announced this morning. Mr. Fondas’s work will appear in all of the chain’s 13 newspapers and related websites.
Mr. Foundas comes to the Voice from a three-year stint as the associate program director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Before that, Mr. Fondas was the film editor at LA Weekly, the West Coast Voice-owned alt weekly. Read More
Tom Tomorrow, the pseudonymous cartoonist who describes his comic strip, ‘This Modern World,’ as having run in the Village Voice “with a couple of small interruptions” since 1995 announced the paper ended its relationship with him today on his blog and in a series of expletive-laden tweets this evening.
“Unsurprising news: my cartoon just got shitcanned from the Village Voice by the assholes at corporate hq,” Mr. Tomorrow wrote. Read More
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
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
He was, of course, already a legend when he brought his wisdom, passion, and insight to the Observer in 1989. But Andrew Sarris did not assume the role of great writer in residence, living on past glory, when he took up with this fledgling operation in only its second full year of existence. Instead, Mr. Sarris showed that even after the tempestuous decades spent at the Village Voice, even after the passions of great feuds and debates had cooled (at least somewhat), he still had a great deal to say, and to teach. Read More
Video
Yesterday, in a rally held in Cooper Square, the 33-year-old son of Village Voice co-founder Norman Mailer got up on the podium, reported Capital New York’s Joe Pompeo.
“It’s hard for me to be up on this podium today,” Mr. Mailer, who was there for a protest to shut down BackPages.com, the part of the Village Voice that’s been accused of sex trafficking in underage women, “because I’ve always loved the paper and what it stood for…to see them now, justifying their actions for this profit is heartbreaking.” Read More
Oooh, fight! Tony Ortega might have to go down to The Village Voice‘s cafeteria and separate Steven Thrasher from beating Running Scared‘s new kid* James King to a bloody pulp…with his words.
No, it’s not a physical fight, because this isn’t the Norman Mailer days anymore, but Mr. Thrasher, a 3-year veteran of the paper, has a few choice words (1363 of them, to be exact) regarding Mr. King’s “casual racism” in his colleague’s post. Read More
Unlimited Salad and Breadsticks
By now you’ve probably heard all about Grand Forks Herald columnist Marilyn Hagerty’s earnest review of the Grand Forks Olive Garden, an arrival so highly anticipated by North Dakotans that there was a line out the restaurant door all of February.
But the long-awaited bread sticks were nothing compared to Ms. Hagerty’s review, which went viral after being picked up by Gawker, BoingBoing and Fark. This too was big news in for the Herald. Read More
The independent Manhattan movie house Film Forum has decided to pull its advertising from the Village Voice, citing concerns about Backpage.com, the classifieds site owned by Voice parent company Village Voice Media.
Longtime Film Forum director Karen Cooper told Off the Record that Nicholas Kristof’s Friday op-ed in The New York Times prompted her decision. Read More
