Village Voice Under New Ownership; Cuts Ties With Backpage.com

Village Voice Under New Ownership; Cuts Ties With Backpage.com

By James King Mon., Sep. 24 2012 at 11:35 AM

Village Voice

There's news to report on the who's-paying-our-salary front: The Village Voice is now under new ownership.

Our parent company, Village Voice Media, has been sold to a group of the company's editors and publishers in a deal that includes the Voice and our 12 sister publications across the country. The deal does not include Backpage.com, which was previously owned by VVM, but will now be a separate company with separate owners.

The new company is called Voice Media Group, and will be headed by Chief Executive Officer Scott Tobias, who previously was VVM's chief operating officer. Christine Brennan, executive managing editor of VVM for the past 19 years, will become executive editor, and Jeff Mars, vice president of financial operations at VVM, will become chief financial officer.

"Voice Media Group will center its attention on the growth of the renowned weekly publications and continue its expansion into new and exciting mobile and online platforms," Tobias says. "We are focused on building a dynamic media business that allows our advertisers to target local audiences through multiple platforms. We will continue to offer advertisers a national footprint with hyper-local reach, and we will continue to provide high-caliber and comprehensive content to our readers."

In a letter to staff announcing the sale, VVM Executive Editor Mike Lacey says he and business partner Jim Larkin "never wished to be the last ones at this remarkable party."

"We started the company's first weekly, Phoenix New Times, in 1970 as a protest over the war in Vietnam and in reaction against the mainstream media," Lacey says. "Nothing about our attitude has changed."

Our new owners share that attitude and pledge a commitment to the intense local coverage and hard-hitting investigative journalism for which the Voice is known.

Tags:

backpage.com, mike lacey, village voice, village voice media, voice media group

We Recommend

MWJ1231

@MzYun Good morning Sweeheart

Dovescorner

@MWJ1231 @MzYun How do Joe feel Obama killed 20+ High level terrorist not engaged? He puts a wild hair in my ass bashing PBO on that point

MzYun

@dovescorner I wasn't watching him. @MWJ1231

MWJ1231

@Dovescorner Good morning Dovey

Dovescorner

@MWJ1231 Excuse my manner! Good Morning! Joe has Obama derangement this morning! Bay Buchannan rattled him

MzYun

@mwj1231 Good morning!

MWJ1231

@MzYun

SumEllisOck

AN edit button would be greatly appreciated...

iidoves

What about all the porn pages, do u intend to keep that HAH?!!

The_Yeti_Knows

I miss Disqus..... It's easier to use for those of us who are constantly equally as high as Charlie Sheen on a Sunday afternoon in the hot-tub.

sofiaflor902

@Loise, you make $27h...good for you! I make up to $85h working from home. My story is that I quit working at shoprite to work online and with a little effort I easily bring in around $45h to $85h…heres a good example of what i'm doing, Red97dotcom

The_Yeti_Knows

@sofiaflor902 Ill pay you $90 an hour to work from your toilet scrubbing klingons instead, just as long as you get lost white Oprah.

Christian Wicked

I don't see any mention of the word "independent" so I'm worried... Very. You guys are one of the last few not-conglomerate-owned print media in the country, I sure hope the writers will be able to keep that freedom. Good luck!

Nicnac

3 Like

Also, is there any way you can go back to Disqus. Load up a thread you commented on 3 days ago. You'll see a string of replies without the comments they were attached to.

kplo moderator communitymanagertopcommenter

@Nicnac Hi. Can you link me to an older thread? I'll go check it out. (I work here, by the way.)

capass7x1

@kplo What happened to the flipbook?

Nicnac

1 Like

@kplo When I load this thread, it is a list of comments with no conversations at all:

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2012/09/there_and_back_and_back_and_back_again.php

Changing the sort from oldest to newest does just that, it sorts all the comments by time but not in context.

Also, not being able to edit comments is a major step backward from Disqus.

Nicnac

@kplo another issue (and thanks for following up on these)... it notifies me by email that a thread I commented on has a reply... and it's my comment. LOL.

kplo moderator communitymanagertopcommenter

@Nicnac It looks like that's an issue with the comments that were imported from Disqus to the new system. I can't promise an immediate fix, but I'll definitely forward it to support.

Lithroe

3 Like

@Nicnac I have to agree. The commenting functions very poorly. There is an almost unanimous dislike of this system where the two of us frequent.

JesseDeath

1 Like

@Lithroe @Nicnac I absolutely agree. At least give us a choice to use Disqus, a platform that is preferred by many and spans across countless sites. This platform is weaksauce.

my2cents

Glad to see you've cut ties with Backpage.com. Good luck on the future!

NYer

Do yourselves a favor if you want to continue to exist. Do more investigative journalism. International,domestic and New York oriented. i.e The NYC Board of Education,Housing and Corruption.

NYer

Here's some material not reported in NY mainstream media. The targeting of elderly Chinese people in NYC Chinaotown assaulting and mugging them while 5th Precinct doe not want to include it in their COMPSTAT because the 5th Precinct is suppose to be a quiet spot to punch your ticket for future promotions. Last week a 74yr old Chinese man was assaulted and mugged by 3 Male Blacks on the Bowery/Water St near the Verizon building across from the Smith Houses. We call up local TV stations and nobody reported it on the evening news.

RogerAllenJr

That "intense local coverage and hard-hitting investigative journalism" is becoming a punch line, like Fox News's "fair and balanced" mantra: The Voice owners just laid off Cam Dodero who typified such coverage as well as investigators Paul Rubin in Phoenix and Rick Anderson in Seattle - then try to claim they're "continuing" those traditions. The one thing that seems to have continued at Voice papers is the diminution of talented reporters and the growth of story pinching bloggers and fluff pieces. Brennan, who has been the company's throat slasher, now rises even farther up the chain. I take that as a sign of no change but for the worst.